Spanish, worked in France, 1881–1973

This figure's floppy three-pointed cap distinguishes it from the similarly gaunt and generally forlorn Harlequin figures that appear so frequently in Pablo Picasso's paintings from 1901 to 1910. The artist certainly saw Paul Cézanne's Mardi Gras (Pierrot and Harlequin) at the 1904 Salon d'Automne in Paris, when he became most interested in the theme. The fluidity with which Picasso moved between the themes of jesters, Harlequins, and saltimbanques—the itinerant acrobats who sometimes dressed in the costumes of Commedia dell'Arte characters—shows how personally he identified with these performers to channel themes of alienation, love, jealousy, and fraternity. Indeed, he began the clay model for this head as a portrait of his friend the poet Max Jacob after an evening spent at the Cirque Médrano. By the time he added the jester's cap, however, Jacob's likeness and personality had been transformed into a visionary, bemused "fool" whose inward-looking gaze is emphasized by his deep eye sockets.

_{Pablo Picasso. Jester, 1905. The Art Institute of Chicago, Kate L. Brewster Collection.}