The Masks of the Commedia dell’Arte

«Please, take off your mask before you come in! If you are beautiful, we will make you ugly; if you are ugly, we will make you beautiful.»

It was with this spirit that our workshop was born, in the early 1980s: from the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte, the Italian theatrical tradition that invented the very concept of the mask as character.

Every mask is a character

Arlecchino, Brighella, Pantalone, Pulcinella of Naples and Pulcinella of Venice, the Plague Doctor, Cyrano: each of our classic masks is hand-modelled in papier-mâché and painted according to tradition. They are wearable masks, born for carnival and theatre, but also beautiful hanging on the wall as small sculptures of character.

The mask is a curious object: it hides the face and at the same time reveals the person. It is the game the Commedia dell’Arte brought to the stage for centuries, and which we bring into the homes of those who love Italy and its stories.

Imagination changes faces

Just as imagination travels far, constantly, unstable and changeable like life, so too must masks – from time to time – change their face. And so, alongside the classic masks, the animal masks, the feminine visetti, and masks that are no longer just masks but sculptures were born.

And if someone has tried, or is trying, to copy our faces? We do not feel responsible for the audacity of others.