The "Janssen" or "Somerset portrait" is in many respects the most interesting painted likeness called "Shakespeare," as it is undoubtedly the finest of all the paintings in the series. It is certainly a genuine as well as a very beautiful picture, and bears the doubt has rightly been expressed whether the 6 of 46 has not been tampered with, altered from o to fit Shakespeare's age. It was first truly revealed in the photo graph of the original published in 1909 (in The Connoisseur) by permission of the owner, the late Lady Guendolen Ramsden, daughter of the duke of Somerset, the previous possessor. Charles Jennens, the eccentric amateur editor of King Lear issued in 177o, was the first known owner; he shrank from the challenge to pro duce the picture. It is more than likely that Janssen was the painter of it at his best; but it is idle to claim it as a likeness of Shakespeare. A number of good copies of it exist, all but one made in the 18th century: the "Croker Janssen" now lost, unless it be Lord Darnley's ; the "Staunton," the "Buckston," the "Mars den Janssen," and the copy lately belonging to the duke of Anhalt. These are all above the average merit of such work.
The portrait which has made the most popular appeal is that called the "Chandos," successively known as the "d'Avenant," the "Stowe," and the "Ellesmere ;" it is now in the National Portrait Gallery. Tradition, tainted at the outset, attributes the author ship of it to Richard Burbage, who is alleged to have given it to his fellow-actor Joseph Taylor, who bequeathed it to Sir William d'Avenant, Shakespeare's godson. As a matter of fact, Taylor died intestate. Thenceforward, whether or not it once belonged to d'Avenant, its history is clear. At the great Stowe sale of the effects of the duke of Buckingham and Chandos (who had in herited it) the earl of Ellesmere bought it and then presented it to the nation. Many serious inquirers have refused to accept this romantic, Italian-looking head here depicted as a likeness of Shakespeare of the Midlands, if only because in every important physiognomical particular, and in face-measurement, it is con tradicted by the Stratford bust and the Droeshout print. Oldys, indifferent to tradition, attributed it to Janssen, an unallowable ascription. That it has not been radically altered by the restorer is proved by the fine copy painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and by him presented to John Dryden. D'Avenant had died in 1668, and so could not, as tradition contends was the case, have been the donor. In Malone's time the picture was already in the possession of the earl Fitzwilliam. This at least proves the esteem in which the Chandos portrait was held by some so far back as the end of the 17th century, only 7o years after Shakespeare's death.
From among the innumerable copies and adaptations of the Chandos portrait a few emerge as having a certain importance of their own. That which Sir Joshua Reynolds is traditionally said
to have made for the use of Roubiliac, then engaged on his statue of Shakespeare for David Garrick (now in the British Museum), and another alleged to have been done for Bishop Newton, are now lost. One by Ranelagh Barret was presented in 1779 to Trinity College Library, Cambridge. Dr. Matthew Maty, principal libra rian of the British Museum, presented his copy, almost certainly by Roubiliac, to the museum in 1760. There are also the smooth but rather original copy (with drapery added) belonging to the earl of Bath at Longleat; the Warwick Castle version ; the Lord St. Leonards ; another copy in coloured crayons, formerly in the Jennens collection, afterwards belonging to Lord Howe, by van der Gucht ; the Shakespeare Hirst picture, based on Houbraken's engraving, and the BaVerstock portrait. The full-size chalk draw ing by Ozias Humphry, R.A., at the Birthplace, Malone guaran teed to be a perfect transcript.
The "Lumley portrait" represents a heavy-jowled man with pursed-up lips, and with something of the expression but little of the vitality of the Chandos, the original of which George Rippon, when its owner, declared it to be (c. 1848). It was claimed to have belonged to John, Lord Lumley, of Lumley Castle, Durham, who died in 1609, but the evidence wholly fails. When in Rippon's possession the picture was so superbly chromo-lithographed by Vincent Brooks that copies of it, mounted on old panel or canvas, and varnished, have often changed hands as original paintings.
It is thinly painted and scarcely looks the age that is claimed for it; but it is an interesting work which, in 1875, entered the collec tion of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts and has since passed to America.
To Frederigo Zuccaro are attributed three of the more impor tant portraits now to be mentioned ; upon him also have been foisted several of the more impudent fabrications herein named.
The "Bath" or "Archer portrait"—it having been in the possession of the Bath Librarian, Archer, when attention was first drawn to it in 1859—is worthy of Zuccaro's brush. It is Italian in feeling and in type, with an inscription ("W. Shakespeare") in an Italian but apparently more modern hand, and it is curious that in cer tain respects it bears some resemblance not only to the Chandos, and to theDroeshout and Janssen portraits, but also to the "death mask"; yet it differs in essentials from all. If this refined and dandified and beautifully-painted portrait represents Shakespeare at about the age of 3o, that is to say in the actor-dramatist had made astonishing progress in the world; but Zuccaro came to England in 1574, and as his biographers state "did not stay long." The conclusion appears to be definite. It is another of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts's portraits which have been acquired in America.