The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3430]
The ‘Jansen’ portrait.
The so-called ‘Jansen’ or Janssens portrait, which belongs to Lady Guendolen Ramsden, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and is now at her residence at Bulstrode, was first doubtfully identified about 1770, when in the possession of Charles Jennens. Janssens did not come to England before Shakespeare’s death. It is a fine portrait, but is unlike any other that has been associated with the dramatist. An admirable mezzotint by Richard Earlom was issued in 1811.
The ‘Felton’ portrait.
The ‘Felton’ portrait, a small head on a panel, with a high and very bald forehead (belonging since 1873 to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts), was purchased by S. Felton of Drayton, Shropshire, in 1792 of J. Wilson, the owner of the Shakespeare Museum in Pall Mall; it bears a late inscription, ‘Gul. Shakespear 1597, R. B.’ [i.e. Richard Burbage]. It was engraved by Josiah Boydell for George Steevens in 1797, and by James Neagle for Isaac Reed’s edition in 1803. Fuseli declared it to be the work of a Dutch artist, but the painters Romney and Lawrence regarded it as of English workmanship of the sixteenth century. Steevens held that it was the original picture whence both Droeshout and Marshall made their engravings, but there are practically no points of resemblance between it and the prints.
The ‘Soest’ portrait.
The ‘Soest’ or ‘Zoust’ portrait—in the possession of Sir John Lister-Kaye of the Grange, Wakefield—was in the collection of Thomas Wright, painter, of Covent Garden in 1725, when John Simon engraved it. Soest was born twenty-one years after Shakespeare’s death, and the portrait is only on fanciful grounds identified with the poet. A chalk drawing by John Michael Wright, obviously inspired by the Soest portrait, is the property of Sir Arthur Hodgson of Clopton House, and is on loan at the Memorial Gallery, Stratford.
Miniatures.
A well-executed miniature by Hilliard, at one time in the possession of William Somerville the poet, and now the property Of Sir Stafford Northcote, bart., was engraved by Agar for vol. ii. of the ‘Variorum Shakespeare’ of 1821, and in Wivell’s ‘Inquiry,’ 1827. It has little claim to attention as a portrait of the dramatist. Another miniature (called the ‘Auriol’ portrait), of doubtful authenticity, formerly belonged to Mr. Lumsden Propert, and a third is at Warwick Castle.
The Garrick Club bust.
A bust, said to be of Shakespeare, was discovered in 1845 bricked up in a wall in Spode and Copeland’s china warehouse in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The warehouse had been erected on the site of the Duke’s Theatre, which was built by