The Ashbourne portrait

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Once thought to be a portrait of William Shakespeare, and now known to depict the slightly altered visage of Sir Hugh Hamersley (1565-1636), the Ashbourne portrait has been the locus of scholarly and popular debate since its discovery in 1847. It joined the Folger collection in 1931 as a portrait of Shakespeare in preparation for the opening of the Folger Shakespeare Library. For more information, see this item's Hamnet record.

Physical description

The portrait was completed in 1612, though its initial painter remains unknown. William L. Pressly has tied the figure's pose to another anonymous work of the seventeenth century, a 1614 portrait of Sir Thomas Broderick, who is displayed in the same three-quarter pose beside a skull as Sir Hugh Hamersley.[1]

Alterations to the painting

Conservation

Controversy

Portrait painter Abraham Wivell verified the image soon after the Reverend Clement Usill Kington's acquisition of it in 1847; in December of that year, a mezzotint made the no-longer-supposed portrait of playwright William Shakespeare available to the public.[2] For the duration of the nineteenth century, the portrait was lauded as a dignified image of England's greatest poet. M.H. Spielmann was the first scholar to dispute the identity of the sitter in a 1910 article. Spielmann dispensed with much of the evidence that had previously been used as identifying proof of Shakespeare: the crest on the book held by the sitter was not Shakespeare's; though Shakespeare had appeared at court, this did not guarantee that he ever wore courtly dress; the sitter was not presented in stage dress and thus could not be a depiction of the playwright as Hamlet (a theory favored based on the skull that sat on the table in the portrait's lower left corner). Spielmann, however, ultimately remarked that the sitter's identity was a mystery, and the possibility of the portrait being of Shakespeare remained.[3]

In a 1940 article published in Scientific American, Charles Wisner Barrell shifted the identity of the sitter to Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604). After examining the portrait with X-rays, Barrell found that the forehead, ruff, and inscription had been altered, and discovered a coat of arms beneath the inscription. Barrell interpreted these changes, especially the obscured coat of arms, as proof that the portrait was Edward de Vere. Barrell attributed the portrait to Dutch painter Cornelius Ketel (1548-1616), also based on information unearthed by his X-rays – this time an inscription of the initials "C.K."[4] This speculation continued in Charlton and Dorothy Ogburn's This Star of England, which connected the portrait to Hamlet and King Lear, again based on the presence of the skull.[5]

The case was settled in 1979, when the portrait was restored in preparation for exhibition. Uncovered during this session was the elusive coat of arms, which firmly identified the sitter as Sir Hugh Hamersley, a merchant who served in a variety of roles in the City of London, among them Lord Mayer and Master of the Haberdasher's Club.[6]

Provenance

The portrait's earliest known owner was the Reverend Clement Usill Kingston, who purchased it in London in 1847. Later that year, it was sold to a Mr. Harvard; after Harvard's death, it was acquired by R. Levine before 1910. In 1928, it was sold at auction to Eustace Conway. Conway put it up for auction the next year, but purchased it back before selling it to Emily Jordan Folger in 1931 for $3,500.

Notes

<references>

  1. ↑ William L. Pressly, "The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass," Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 68.
  2. ↑ Pressly 58-59.
  3. ↑ Pressly 59-60.
  4. ↑ Pressly 61.
  5. ↑ Pressly 64.
  6. ↑ Pressly 64-66.