Trousers, clown costume breeches

This costume was worn by the clown Joseph Grimaldi when performing on the London stage. The costume includes breeches with slit sides and is decorated with silver sequins and red worsted braid similar to that used to edge printed cotton furnishings of the early 19th century. The style of decoration and its scallops echoes the new Romantic Gothic motifs coming into fashion in the early 19th century.

Born in Clare Market, London the son of an Italian stage performer, Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) was to become the most celebrated clown of his day. The first to paint his face white his performances ensured the clown became centre stage in the British pantomime. A dedicated performer his desire to please his audience ultimately resulted in the poor health that forced him to retire in the late 1820s. As noted by the author Charles Dickens In his introduction to the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, whilst the clown's ‘attention to his duties and invariable punctuality were always remarkable’ the ‘immense fatigue’ induced by over-work ‘sowed the first seeds of that extreme debility and utter prostration of strength from which, in the latter years of his life, he suffered so much’. He gave this costume to his pupil and successor Thomas Matthews in 1836, the year before he died.