THE PORTRAITS OF SHAKESPEARE The mystery that surrounds much in the life and work of Shakespeare extends also to his portraiture. The fact that the only two likenesses of the poet that can be regarded as carrying the authority of his co-workers, his friends, and relations—yet neither of them a direct life-portrait—differ in certain essential points, has opened the door to controversy and encouraged the advance and foolish acceptance of numerous wholly different types. The result has been a swarm of portraits which may be classed as follows : (I) the genuine portraits of persons not Shakespeare but not altogether unlike the various conceptions of him; (2) memorial portraits often based on one or other of ac cepted originals, whether those originals are worthy of acceptance or not; (3) portraits of persons known or unknown, which have been fraudulently "faked" into a resemblance of Shakespeare; and (4) spurious fabrications made for imposition upon the public.
The two portraits which can be accepted without question as authentic likenesses are—the Bust (really a half-length statue) with its structural wall-monument in the choir of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, and the copper-plate engraved by Martin Droeshout as frontispiece to the First Folio of Shake speare's plays (and used for three subsequent editions) published in 1623, although first printed in the previous year.
The Stratford bust and monument must have been erected on the north wall of the chancel or choir within, at most, the six years that followed Shakespeare's death in 1616, as it is mentioned in the prefatory memorial lines by Leonard Digges in the First Folio : probably, three or four years earlier. The design in its general aspect was one often adopted by the "tombe-makers" of the period, though not originated by them, and according to Dug dale was executed by a Fleming resident in London since 1567, Garratt Johnson (Gerard Janssen), a denizen. The bust is be lieved to have been commissioned by the poet's son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, and, like the Droeshout print, must have been seen by and likely enough had the approval of Mrs. Shakespeare, who did not die until August 1623. It is thought to have been modelled from either a life or death mask, and inartistic as it is has the marks of facial portraiture and is not a generalization such as was common in funereal sculpture. According to the practice of the
day, especially at the hands of Flemish sculptors of memorial figures, the bust was coloured; this is sufficient to account for the technical summariness of the modelling and of the forms. Thus the eyebrows are but slightly indicated by the chisel, and a solid surface represents the teeth of the open mouth: the brush was evoked to supply effect and detail. To the colour, as poorly reap plied after the removal of the white paint with which Malone had had the bust covered in 1793, must be attributed a good deal of the wooden appearance which is now a shock to many. The bust is of soft stone, but a careful examination of the work reveals no sign of the alleged breakage of the nose and repair to which some writers have attributed the apparently inordinate length of the upper lip. This appearance is to a great extent an optical illusion, the result partly of the smallness of the nose and, mainly, of the thinness of the moustache that shows the flesh above and below. Some repair was made to the monument in 1649, and again in 1748, but there is no mention in the church records of any meddling with the bust itself. Owing, however, to the characteris tic inaccuracy of the print by one of Hollar's assistants in the illustration of Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), certain writers have been misled into the belief that the whole monument and bust were not merely restored but replaced by others which we see to-day. As other prints in the volume are known to depart grossly from the objects represented, and as Dugdale, like Vertue, was at times equally loose in his descriptions and presentments, there is no reason to believe that the bust and the figures above it are other than those originally placed in position. Moreover, in style, they are strictly of their period. Other engravers, following the Dugdale print, have further stulti fied the original, but as they differ among themselves, little impor tance need be attached to the circumstance. A warning should be uttered against many of the so-called "casts" of the bust. George Bullock took a cast in 1814 and Signor A. Michele another about forty years after, but those attributed to W. R. Kite, W. Scoular, and others, are really misleading copies.