I love it! The clouds on a string have something about original Baroque stagings about them.
My granddad was quite a good painter, and he used to copy great artists' pictures as well, just for fun, from time to time. One of his copied paintings was that of some harlequins, one in a checkerd classic costume. I cannot remember the original artist at the moment. When my grandfather was young, I think, it was very modern, so I guess it was painted roughly at the beginning of the 20th century.
It was neither Cezanne nor Picasso's famous "In 'Lapin Agile' or Harlequin with a Glass," but it has a similar air about it. It portrays an exhausted, slightly despirited artist captured in a private moment.
*edit: I found it! The artist is called Karl Hofer, the picture is titled "Maskerade"; it was painted in 1922.