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Drypoint on paper. Signed lower center: “Tichý 43”. The head of a figure from the classic Italian Commedia dell'arte, his shoulders wrapped in a checkered shirt and a tall hat atop his head, the harlequin (arlecchino) is a figure well known to this day. A poor farmer who came down from the hills of Bergamo, he wore heavily patched clothing that gradually turned into his checkered clothing. In France his attire was stylized for the court; instead of patches, he started to wear multicolored checkered clothes. The first works with this subject stem from the early 1920s. Reproduced in: František Dvořák, František Tichý, Grafické dílo, Galerie a nakladatelství Vltavín, Prague, 1995, p. 85. Eight artist's proofs, numbered – state IV – face lightened through sanding. Hat modeled with crosshatching. Crosshatching in the checkered attire.