Sebastiaan Vrancx

The itinerant theatre form known as Commedia dell'arte had its origins in 16th-century Italy. In its early form, there was no set narrative but rather basic themes set around the personalities of the stock characters. By the 18th and 19th centuries many of the more popular scenes and often-repeated jokes had been standardised and recorded in written format but at the time Vrancx executed his series of Commedia dell'arte paintings¹ narratives were fluid and based around a variety of adaptable Lazzi (or stock jokes). 

Here Pantalone, a character associated with greed and an egotistical nature, is clearly marked by his red trousers, black cloak and hunched back. The second figure is one of the zanni (or servants and tricksters), probably Brighella, noted for his musical ability. The scene depicted was a popular one in which Pantalone serenades a girl under her window and her servant responds by tipping the contents of a jug, or sometimes a chamber-pot, out of the window onto Pantalone. Here it seems that the musical Brighella did the serenading on the orders of his master and was drenched as a result.

1. See, for example, the Landscape with Commedia dell'arte figures in a palace gardens in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.