Mention should here be made of the "Kesselstadt Death Mask," now at Darmstadt, as that has been claimed as the true death mask of Shakespeare, and by it the authenticity of other portraits has been gauged. In three places on the back of it is the inscrip tion, Al'IN 1616, and this is the sole actual link with Shake speare. The cast first came to light in 1849 when Dr. Becker bought it in a broker's rag shop in Mainz and coolly assumed it to be the unnamed "plaster of Paris cast" which had appeared in the death-sale at Mainz of Count Kesselstadt in 1847. Upon this an ill-judged theory has been elaborated, but nothing has been carried beyond the point of bare conjecture, while the arguments against the authenticity of the cast are strong and cogent. The handsome and refined aspect of the mask accounts for much of the favour in which it has been held.
The "Droeshout print" derives its importance from its having been executed at the order of Heminge and Condell to represent, as a frontispiece to the Plays, and put forth as his portrait, the man and friend to whose memory they paid the homage of their adventure. The volume was to be his real monument, and the work was regarded by them as a memorial erected in a spirit of love, pride, and veneration. Anne Shakespeare must have seen the print; Ben Jonson extolled it—his dedicatory verses, how ever should be regarded in the light of conventional approval.
An authentic portrait, since lost, must necessarily have been the basis of the engraving. Sir George Sharf, judging from the contradictory lights and shadows in the head, astutely concluded that the original must have been a shadowless limning which the youthful engraver attempted to put into chiaroscuro with but partial success. That this is truly the case is shown by the so-called "unique proof" discovered by Halliwell-Phillipps, and now in the Folger Shakespeare Library in America. Another copy is in the Bodleian Library. In this plate the head is far more human, and the bony structure corresponds. In the "proof," moreover, there is a thin, wiry moustache, afterwards widened in the print as used; and in several other details there are divergencies. In this en graving by Droeshout the body is too small for the head, and the dress is out of perspective : an additional argument that the un practised engraver had only a drawing of a head to work from, for while the head shows the individuality of portraiture the body is as clearly guesswork. The "first proof" is conclusive evidence against the contention that the "Flower Portrait" at the Shake speare Memorial Museum, Stratford-on-Avon—too boldly entitled the "Droeshout original"—is the original painting from which the engraving was made and is, therefore, the actual life-portrait for which Shakespeare sat. We find that several details in the proof—the incorrect illumination, the small moustache (such as we see, at the same period, in Isaac Oliver's miniature of Shake speare's contemporary, Richard Sackville, 3rd earl of Dorset, dated 1616), the shape of the eyebrow and of the deformed ear, etc.—have been corrected in the painting, in which further im
provements are also imported. The conclusion is therefore irresis tible. It is possible that the picture may be the earliest painted portrait of the poet—probably executed in the earlier half of the 17th century; but the inscription—Willm Shakespeare, 16o9— is suspect on account of being written in cursive script, the only known example at the date to which it professes to belong. The most interesting parallel to this portrait is perhaps that by William Blake, now in the Manchester Corporation Art Gallery ; and one of the cleverest imitations of an old picture in the "Buttery" or "Ellis portrait," acquired by an American collector in 1902. It is curious that the "Thurston miniature" done from the Droeshout print gives the moustache of the "proof,"—the same moustache as appears in the late Sir James Fergusson's oil portrait of Shake speare.
Two other portraits of the same character of head and arrange ment are the "Ely Palace portrait" and the "Felton portrait." The "Ely Palace portrait" was discovered in 1845 in a broker's shop, and was bought by Thomas Turton, bishop of Ely, who died in 1864. It bears the inscription "IE 39+1603," and it shows a moustache and a right eyebrow identical with those in the Droes hout "proof." Some hailed it as the original of the print ; others dismissed it as a "make-up": at the same time it has not been proved a fraud. The "Felton portrait," which made its first appear ance in 1792, had the championship of the cynical Steevens and other authorities, as the original of the Droeshout print, while a few of those who believed in the "Chandos portrait" denounced it as "a rank forgery." On the back of the panel was traced in a florid hand "Gul. Shakespear 1597 R.B." (by others read "R.N."). If R. B. were correct, it is contended the initials indicate Richard Burbage, Shakespeare's fellow-actor. (Boaden's copy, made in 1792, repeating the inscription on the back, has "Guil. Shakspeare 1587 R.N.") The spelling of Shakespeare's name—which in suc ceeding ages has been governed by the fashion of the day—has a distinct bearing on the authenticity of the panel. At the first ap pearance of the "Felton portrait" in a London sale-room it was bought by Samuel Felton of Drayton, Shropshire, for five pounds, along with a pedigree which carried its refutation along with it. Nevertheless, it bears evidence of being an honest painting of somebody done from life. Richardson, the printseller, issued misleading engravings of it by Trotter and others (by which it is best known) adding a body in the Droeshout costume and then maintaining that the work was the original of the Droeshout print and therefore Shakespeare. It is now in America.