Marika Takanishi Knowles's monograph focuses on Pierrot’s ... (around 1720), now in the Louvre. Watteau’s clown smiles ... part of a group of itinerant and vagabond Parisian “types ...

He designed Pierrot’s clown costume, then added the greasepaint and red nose, becoming in the process an immensely popular 19th century entertainer. The rest is continuing history.