Vintage H Wain & Sons Creepy Clowns Pierrot Pagliacci Salt & Pepper Shakers Set
Add a touch of vintage charm to your kitchen with this H. Wain & Sons salt and pepper shaker set featuring the iconic character Pierrot from the opera I Pagliacci. The set includes two shakers, one for salt and one for pepper, in an Art Deco figural pattern of the character's head with his trademark "dunce" cap. The ceramic shakers are pastel blue and pink, making them a perfect addition to any collection or for use on all occasions. The shakers are approximately 2.75 inches in diameter by 3.75 inches tall and are marked H Wain & Sons Ltd, Melba Works, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent Made in England, Shape, Decor on the back. They were originally produced in the United Kingdom during the early 20th century. This set is perfect for an Opera fan, or anyone who loves vintage items that add a unique touch to their kitchen decor.
Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comedie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of Pierre via the suffix -ot. His character in contemporary popular culture is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin. Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons and with a conical shaped hat like a dunce's cap.
Pierrot's character developed from being a buffoon to an avatar of the disenfranchised. Many cultural movements found him amenable to their respective causes: Decadents turned him into a disillusioned foe of idealism; Symbolists saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer; Modernists made him into a silent, alienated observer of the mysteries of the human condition. Much of that mythic quality still adheres to the "sad clown" in the postmodern era. Canio's Pagliaccio in the famous opera (1892) by Leoncavallo is inspired by Pierrot and tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who murders his wife Nedda and her lover Silvio on stage during a performance.