For more than 70 years, Clowns International—the oldest established clowning organization—has been painting the faces of its members on eggs. Each one is a record of a clown’s unique identity, preserving the unwritten rule that no clown should copy another’s look.

This unique book is a mesmerizing assembly of more than 150 of these portraits, from 1946 to the modern-day, accompanied by short personal histories of many of the clowns. Here are Tricky Nicky, Taffy, Bobo, Sammy Sunshine, the legendary Emmett Kelly, and Jolly Jack, clowning since 1977 and still performing today with a penguin puppet named Biscuit.

A treasure just like the eggs it enshrines, The Clown Egg Register is an extraordinary archive of images accompanied by the lives of the men and women behind the make-up.