Caption title from finished state.
Finished state signed "Gillot pinx. et Sculp.", with imprint reading "A Paris chez Vanheck"; lettered with caption title and 6 lines of verse in two columns.
1st state, before all letters.
One of a series of four prints by Gillot, known under the title "Scènes comiques du théâtre Italien"; tentatively dated by Populus as having been executed between 1716-1718.
Forms part of a collection of 586 etchings by and after Claude Gillot, mounted into a bound album by a former owner, with letterpress title page reading "Oeuvres de Gillot." (see PML 198162).
Library's copy trimmed to platemark.
Print shows Scaramouche as an artist, seated at a canvas with a portrait of Harlequin and holding brushes and a palatte; he lunges forward, pointing a brush at Harlequin, who is seated on a stool to his left, recoiling from Scaramouche's gesture with the brush; farther left stand a man and two women, and in the immediate background at right, Pierrot stands at a work table grinding pigment.