![]() The sketch in PRO 30/25/205 is in one sense absolutely not the face of Shakespeare. It seems unlikely that the composite image Rawdon Brown copied looked much like the originals from which it was created. Whatever the reason for this combination of canvases (and Rawdon Brown would not be the only person to be suspicious of the motive), it is highly unusual. The Visual Arts Data Service description says that the X-ray taken ‘shows that the head is painted on a separate section of canvas and superimposed on an already existing portrait, itself cut from a larger canvas’. We have not been able to locate the original X-ray of the Venice portrait, despite the efforts of colleagues at the Courtauld Institute (which took the X-ray) and the National Gallery Research Centre (which holds the wonderful archive of Agnew’s). We are especially grateful to the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art which generously provided a copy of the exhibition catalogue. X-ray and other photographic techniques have revolutionised art historical understanding in many ways. In 1969, it was one of a small number of paintings shown at a special exhibition by the Burlington Magazine and the art dealer Agnew’s, entitled ‘Art Detection, Painting and the X-ray’. 1 Modern investigative techniquesĪs modern conservation and investigation techniques became more sophisticated, the Venice portrait had one last moment in the limelight. Instead it was bought by Henry Graves in Paris, and bequeathed by him to the Royal Shakespeare Company. The portrait was not sold in Venice in Rawdon Brown’s time. Nor was there any particular reason for a portrait of him to be there 300 years after his death, labelled with a form of his name in Italian. Shakespeare writes redolently of Venice, but there is not a jot of evidence he was ever there. He no doubt suspected, naturally enough, that the hunger for images of Shakespeare – reawakened following David Garrick’s sustained rehabilitation of the playwright’s reputation in the late 18th century, and never satiated – had created a market in, at best, wishful thinking. Rawdon Brown’s notes are sceptical, detailed, and aware. Any portrait of Shakespeare receives a huge amount of scrutiny. It identifies the familiar Stratford burgher as the playwright not just an actor, at a specific date when his powers were at their zenith, with a connection to the Venetian embassy in London, a known magnet for suspected Catholics like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.īrown approached the painting with a scholar’s careful attitude to weighing evidence. What then can we say about his fine pencil drawing of the portrait Brown found and its extraordinary inscription, ‘Scoti Lanza (Shake Spear) English Playwright 21 July 1604’? On the face of it, it has everything. Or did he? The significance of the Venice portrait ![]() ![]() Robert Browning did it in Florence with ‘The Ring and the Book’ Rawdon Lubbock Brown did it in Venice, with a long lost portrait of Shakespeare. To stumble across some neglected item in an Italian market stall that solves a puzzle, makes your name and fuels your literary imagination. The discoveryīut why is this image in our collection? The expert among whose papers it was found was Rawdon Lubbock Brown who, as you may have read in a blog earlier this year, was among the staff of the then-Public Record Office… but in Venice. In the Wikipedia entry, you’ll find it called the ‘Venice’ portrait of Shakespeare. Our sketch is a copy of an extant portrait, now owned by none other than the Royal Shakespeare Company. One of those listed is the original for the image we’re discussing today. It’s obvious that many people, across many decades, have longed to get closer to the playwright in life. Since the two look reasonably similar to each other, they are likely as close as we can get to ‘knowing’ what Shakespeare looked like.īut wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a portrait from life? There is a long and disputatious history of other suggested portraits of Shakespeare. Both are posthumous images, but both were commissioned by people who knew Shakespeare well. Our portrait looks remarkably like the two known likenesses of Shakespeare: an engraving by Martin Droeshout for the First Folio and the bust effigy on Shakespeare’s tomb. It is a pencil copy, made in the 19th century by an antiquarian and archivist, of a 17th century portrait.īut is this an image of Shakespeare, and why is it in the collections of The National Archives at all? Images of Shakespeare The image itself is quite easily explained. The portrait shows a balding man, dark haired, rather askew of eye, and wearing a white lace collar of a type familiar to anyone who has read anything about William Shakespeare. Rawdon Brown’s sketch copy of a portrait examined in Venice (catalogue reference: PRO 30/25/205 )
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