189 years ago this week, on 31 May 1837, Joseph Grimaldi – the most celebrated clown in English theatrical history – died in London. Grimaldi invented virtually everything we now associate with the clown: the chalk-white face, the painted grin, the outrageous costume, the slapstick physicality. His performances at Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells drew enormous crowds.

The clown as Grimaldi conceived it is just one of many staple comic figures throughout history and around the world. Jesters entertained royal courts from medieval Western Europe to the Ottoman Empire and often made veiled criticisms of powerful figures while wearing a cap and bells or other accoutrements.

The harlequin emerged later, from the Italian commedia dell’arte – a nimble trickster in a diamond-patterned costume, perpetually lovesick and broke, a character so malleable that artists from Watteau to Picasso adopted him as an alter ego. This week we examine four works from across five centuries that depict clowns, harlequins and jesters.

The clown as Grimaldi conceived it is just one of many staple comic figures throughout history and around the world. Jesters entertained royal courts from medieval Western Europe to the Ottoman Empire and often made veiled criticisms of powerful figures while wearing a cap and bells or other accoutrements. The harlequin emerged later, from the Italian commedia dell’arte – a nimble trickster in a diamond-patterned costume, perpetually lovesick and broke, a character so malleable that artists from Watteau to Picasso adopted him as an alter ego. This week we examine four works from across five centuries that depict clowns, harlequins and jesters.