Pierrot Pierrot 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 Comédie-Italienne; the name is a diminutive of "Pierre" (Peter), via the suffix "-ot." His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, 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
Pierrot where he appears. Pierrot, on the other hand, as a "second" "zanni", is a static character in his earliest incarnations, "standing on the periphery of the action", dispensing advice that seems to him sage, and courting—unsuccessfully—his master's young daughter, Columbine, with bashfulness and indecision. His origins among the Italian players in France are most unambiguously traced to Molière's character, the lovelorn peasant Pierrot, in "Don Juan, or The Stone Guest" (1665). In 1673, probably inspired by Molière's success, the Comédie-Italienne made its own contribution to the Don Juan legend with an "Addendum to "The Stone Guest"", which included Molière's Pierrot.