Man with a gold earring; article
bookburn
The Sunday Times
February 05, 2006
Man with a gold earring likely to be the real Bard
Jack Grimston
A PORTRAIT of William Shakespeare wearing a gold earring has been identified
as the image of the playwright most likely to have been painted from real
life.
After subjecting rival claimants to a series of x-rays and other tests,
researchers at the National Portrait Gallery concluded that the so-called
Chandos portrait of the bard has the best credentials.
The six pictures with the strongest claims to authenticity all feature in an
exhibition that will open at the gallery next month.
The Chandos portrait appears to show Shakespeare in his latest thirties or
early forties. This is consistent with the age of the paint on the portrait,
which has been dated to between 1600 and 1610.
Its provenance is also stronger than those of the five other paintings.
Detailed notes of its history, which were written in the 18th century, record
that it was painted by John Taylor, an actor friend of the playwright. The
painting was given to the National Portrait Gallery by Lord Ellesmere in 1856
and was the institution's first picture.
The gallery's analysts were able to see through the layers of varnish and
overpainting that have accumulated on the portrait, showing that the earring
was one of the original parts of the portrait, although some of the beard and
hair have been added later.
Other images in the exhibition include the engraving by Martin Droeshout,
which is one of the most commonly reproduced images of Shakespeare in books
and posters. It is believed Droeshout never met the playwright, however.
The gallery has dismissed the Flower portrait, owned by the Royal Shakespeare
Company, as a 19th-century fake painted on a 16th-century wood panel.
Another famous image, the Grafton portrait, owned by the John Rylands Library
in Manchester, shows a young man in his twenties. It is credited by Dr Tarnya
Cooper, curator of the exhibition, as having "fuelled the kind of Shakespeare
in love theories of the 21st century".
The techniques used by Cooper and her researchers concluded that this painting
dates from the 1580s. However, the team has found no convincing evidence to
connect it with Shakespeare.
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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Art Neuendorffer
------------------------------------------------------------
_Was Oxford's Portrait Shakespeare's?_ by Richard Whalen
http://www.everreader.com/manindep.htm
<<About a decade after the Shakespeare Jubilee occurred a third
indication that someone may have believed that Oxford was Shakespeare.
This clue was in a portrait inventory that seemed to imply that
a portrait of Oxford was thought to be that of Shakespeare.
Derran Charlton, an archival researcher of South Yorkshire,
England, made the discovery at Wentworth Woodhouse and published
his finding in the De Vere Society Newsletter last May 1995..
The inventory of portraits, dated 1782, lists all the heirloom portraits
mentioned in the 1696 will of William, Earl of Wentworth --except
one. Missing from the inventory list is a portrait of Edward de Vere,
17th earl of Oxford. Where did that portrait go?
Scanning the inventory, Derran Charlton also noted that a portrait of
the same dimensions was described simply as "Shakespeare". No portrait
of Shakespeare was mentioned in the will, nor has any been found,
nor has the inventory reference been linked to any of the other
purported portraits of Shakespeare the Stratford man.
Furthermore, the listing of the Shakespeare portrait was alongside
listings of portraits of Oxford's cousin, Lord Horace Vere, and his
grandson, James Stanley. Since Oxford's portrait is omitted from the
list and one called "Shakespeare" turns up among Oxford's relatives,
it seems quite possible that whoever drew up the inventory called
the Oxford portrait "Shakespeare". Otherwise the disappearance of
the one and emergence of the other, as described
by Derran Charlton, is quite unaccountable.
Finally, a convergence of pictures of "Shakspeare" and of Oxford in the
18th century may someday fit the pattern. At the point of convergence
is Edward HARLEY, whose library became the Harleian Collection.
In 1737 HARLEY took the engraver George Vertue with him to see
Stratford and the monument in Trinity Church. Vertue sketched
the monument but declined to show the face of the monument's
"Shakspeare" in his sketch. Instead, he substituted a likeness
based on the so-called Chandos portrait of Shakespeare.
He also put HARLEY into his sketch, as a lone spectator
of this bust with a substitute face.
As it happens, HARLEY was the 2nd earl of Oxford (second creation),
while his wife had connections to the 17th earl of Oxford (first
creation). She was the great-great-granddaughter of Oxford's
favorite cousin, the famous Horace de Vere. Also, she had
inherited the so-called Welbeck portrait of the 17th Earl
of Oxford, now at the National Portrait Gallery.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Times October 28, 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1846783,00.html
<<Experts are holding out hope that the Chandos portrait may have been
painted from the Bard in the flesh. Given the name because it was
once owned by the Duke of Chandos, it has been attributed to
a painter called *JOHN TAYLOR* and dated to about 1610.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The first tribute to Shakespeare which can be dated precisely is
a poem in *JOHN TAYLOR*'s The Praise of HEMP-seed (1620) which
lists Shakespeare along with Spenser, Sidney and other famous
dead English poets who Taylor says will live on in their verses
(Chambers II, 226).>>
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/whynot.html
--------------------------------------------------------
*JOHN TAYLOR*, the Water Poet,
has a poem in The Praise of HEMP-seed (1620):
http://www.shakespeareauthorship.com/eulogies.html
*IN PAPER* , many a poet now survives
Or else their lines had perish'd with their lives.
Old Chaucer, Gower, and Sir Thomas More,
Sir Philip Sidney, who the laurel wore,
Spenser, and Shakespeare did in art excell,
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel.
Sylvester, Beaumont, SIR JOHN HARRINGTON,
Forgetfulness their *WORKS WOULD OVER RUN*
But that *IN PAPER* they immortally
Do live in spite of death, and cannot die.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<"When *HEMPE* is spun England is done." Lord Bacon says he heard
the prophecy when he was a child, and he interpreted it thus:
*HEMPE* is composed of the initial letters of
[H]enry, [E]dward, [M]ary, [P]hilip, and [E]lizabeth.
At the close of the last reign "England was done,"
for the sovereign no longer styled himself "King of England,"
but "King of Great Britain and Ireland.">>
http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/597.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Charles MacKay
"When *HEMPE* is ripe and ready to pull,
Then Englishman beware thy skull."
<<This prophecy, which, one would think, ought to have put him in
mind of the gallows, the not unusual fate of false prophets, and
perchance his own, he explains thus: -- "In this word *HEMPE* be five
letters. Now, by reckoning the five successive princes from Henry
VIII, this prophecy is easily explained: H signifieth King Henry
before named; E, Edward, his son, the sixth of that name; M, Mary,
who succeeded him; P, Philip of Spain, who, by marrying Queen Mary,
participated with her in the English diadem; and, lastly, E signifieth
Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there was a great feare that some
troubles might have arisen about the crown." As this did not happen,
Heywood, who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets out of the scrape
by saying, "Yet proved this augury true, though not according to
the former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration
of King James, there was great mortality, not in London only,
but through the whole kingdom, and from which the nation
was not quite clean in seven years after.">>
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Shakespeare "Signatures" Deconstructed
By Robert Detobel
<<Illiterate people could use a seal instead of putting their mark.
"The Durham husbandman *JOHN TAYLOR* who suspected his half brother
of trying to lay hands on his land by 'bringinge certain writeings
to me which I could not certainly tell what they were...all which
I did refuse to seale' knew the disadvantages of illiteracy.">>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Stabbed in the Eye by *JOHN TAYLOR*
----------------------------------------------------------------
Handel was born 50 miles from Eisenach,
Bach's birthplace in the same year as Bach.
<<In 1719 Bach attempted to arrange a meeting with the visiting
Handel. Although this meeting never took place, in one of the curious
ironies of music history, both men would be afflicted with cataracts
in their old age, undergo surgery at the hand of the same oculist,
*JOHN TAYLOR*, and die from sepsimia induced as a consequence of
un-sterile instruments employed to push the cataract covered lense
back into the eyeball (in an attempt to allow some light to enter).>>
http://www2.nau.edu/~tas3/handel.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
Haddon Hall: the seat of the Duke of Rutland.
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.derbyshireguide.co.uk/travel/haddon.htm
<<Rayner, in his History and Antiquities of Haddon Hall, tells a rich
story of old times (the story was told to Rayner by William Hage, the
Guide, "a descendant of John Ward, who, in 1527, was deer-keeper to
the Lord of Haddon" . . . "who was turned out of the family six times
for drinking too much, and at length died drunk. His son, however,
succeeded him in his office; and his posterity in the female line
have continued in the service of the proprietors of Haddon Hall
to the present time." .
"A great butcher, who used to fit the family at Haddon with small
meat, a fat man weighing eighteen stone, named *JOHN TAYLOR*, from
Darley Dale, came at Christmas time, when they were keeping open
house; and the old Earl's wife would not let the butter go into the
larder till she had seen it, so it remained in the old family hall
(the Banqueting Hall) and stood there for some hours. The butlers (of
whom there were two, one for the small-beer cellar and the other for
the strong) had for several weeks before missed two pounds of butter
every week, and they could not think what had become of it, or who had
taken it, so they determined to watch, one butler spying through the
little door, and the other through the great door, when presently
the great butcher came as usual for orders for small meat; and after
looking round he lays his fingers upon the butter, and pops one pound
of butter within his coat on one side, and another pound on the other
side. This was observed, and the butler from the strong beer cellar
came up to the butcher saying, 'Jack, it is Christmas time - I have a
famous jack of strong beer and you shall have it before you go. Sit
you down by the kitchen fire.' He sat there awhile, when the butler,
handing him the flagon, said, 'Don't be afraid of it, I will fetch
some more.' And as he sat near the fire, the butter on one side
melting with the heat, began to trickle down his breeches
into his shoes. 'Why Jack,' said the butler, 'you seem a great deal
fatter on one side than the other. Turn yourself round, you must be
starved on one side.' He was obliged to comply, and presently the
butter ran down that side also; and afterwards, as he walked up the
Hall, the melted butter ran over the tops of his shoes. The Earl,
says Hage, made a laughing-stock of it, but if such a thing was to
be done in these days, the man would be turned out of the family".
This nobleman was the grandson of our Dorothy,
and his lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Montagu.>>
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.peakleisure.co.uk/bakewell.htm
<<A local butcher *JOHN TAYLOR* supplied the Hall with meat,
two of the butlers noticed that butter went missing after his meat
deliveries. They hatched a plan to leave some butter easily available
on a table and concealed themselves on his next visit. After noting
that Taylor placed the butter in his trouser pockets, the butlers
plied him with some strong wine and sat him before a roaring
fire while the melting butter ran into his shoes.
The Manners influence can be seen in the Old Market Hall in the town
centre, the shield of the Manners family adorns the outside of the
building which is now used as an Information Centre. Roger Manners
built the Hospital of St Joseph in 1593, it was later rebuilt and
converted into almshouses. The local grammar school was founded by
Lady Manners in 1636. The octagonal spired All Saint's Church stands
overlooking the town, inside in the Manners Chapel is the tomb of
Dorothy Vernon, her husband John Manners and four of their children.
Look out for the gruesome gargoyles in the church porch. Alongside
the church is the Old Tudor House Museum and below, Avenel Court, a
group of old buildings containing the Old Town Hall built in 1684.
According to the court records of the 18th century, the GALLOWS at
Bakewell worked overtime. A small sample illustrates the severity
of the punishment and the implication that. ' crime didn't pay !'
in Bakewell.
1705, John Crossland and his two sons were convicted of
horse stealing, the bench offered a pardon to
the one who would hang the other two
1735, John Smith, executed for burglary.
1738, Richard Woodward, executed for highway robbery.
He dressed himself in a shroud and walked to the GALLOWS.
1740, George Ashmore, hanged for coining, his body
was later subsequently stolen by resurrectionists.>>
---------------------------------------------------------
Moby Dick - Melville
<< "HEMP only can kill thee."
"The GALLOWS, ye mean.- I am immortal then, on land and on sea,"
cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;
- "Immortal on land and on sea!"
Both were silent again, as one man.
Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'
ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in
front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off
on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little
like a GALLOWS. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at
the time, but I could not help staring at this GALLOWS with a vague
misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two
remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me.
It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing
in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me
in the whalemen's chapel, and here a GALLOWS!>>
------------------------------------------------------------
Q2 & Folio: "CLAMBRIN[G] TO HANG, AN ENVIOUS SLIVER BROKE"
V E R O N I L V E R I U S
A________ L
G________ E
A________ N
B________ K
O________ C
N________ N
[D]________ I
__________ R
__________ B
__________ S
__________ A
_________- M
__________ O
__________ H
__________ T
Genesis 4:12:a fugitive and a *VAGABOND* shalt thou be in the earth.
--------------------------------------------------
__ T O T H E o n
_____ {r}o [H] e
_____ {o} n[E] (M)
_____ {p} [N]e (A)
_____ {e[R]n (R)o
_____ [Y]o_____ l(I)
_____ O.E._____ (H)
_____ [W]
_____ [R]
_____ [E|
_____ [S|
_____ [L|H]
_____ [E|T]
_____ [Y|O]
_____ |I]
----------------------------------------------------
GIBBET, n. [OE. gibet, F. gibet, in OF. also club, fr. LL. gibetum;
cf. OF. gibe sort of sickle or hook, It. giubbetto gibbet, and
giubbetta, dim. of giubba mane, also, an under waistcoat, doublet,
Prov. It. gibba); so that it perhaps originally signified a halter,
a rope round the neck of malefactors; or it is,
perhaps, derived fr. L. gibbus HUNCHED, HUMPED,
E. gibbous; or cf. E. jib a sail.] 1. A kind of gallows;
an upright post with an arm projecting from the top,
on which, formerly, malefactors were hanged *IN CHAINS* ,
and their bodies allowed to remain as a warning.
The projecting arm of a crane, the jib.
Gibbet, v. t., 1. To hang and expose on a gibbet.
2. To expose to infamy; to blacken.
_____ I'll gibbet up his name. --Oldham.
-----------------------------------------------------
HENRICUS URIOTHESLEUS
per anagramma
*THESEUS* NIL REUS HIC RUO
_[I]ure quidem poteras hanc fundere ab ore querelam,
_[S]ors tibi dum ficto crimine dura fuit:
"[N]il reus en *THESEUS* censura sortis iniquae
_[H]ic ruo, livoris traditus arbitrio."
_[A]t nunc mutanda ob mutata pericla querela est.
_[I]nclite, an innocuo pectore teste rues?
_[N]on sane. Hac haeres vacuo dat *VIVERE* cura,
_[C]ollati imperii sub Iove sceptra gerens.
.............................................
*ISNHAINC*
*IN CHAINS*
---------------------------------------
Antony and Cleopatra Act 5, Scene 2
CLEOPATRA: Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! rather make
My country's high PYRAMIDES my GIBBET,
And hang me up *IN CHAINS* !
-------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
mind of the *GALLOWS*, the not unusual fate of false prophets, and
According to the court records of the 18th century, the *GALLOWS* at
Bakewell worked overtime. A small sample illustrates the severity
of the punishment and the implication that. ' crime didn't pay !'
in Bakewell.
1705, John Crossland and his two sons were convicted of
horse stealing, the bench offered a pardon to
the one who would hang the other two
1735, John Smith, executed for burglary.
1738, Richard Woodward, executed for highway robbery.
He dressed himself in a shroud and walked to the *GALLOWS*.
1740, George Ashmore, hanged for coining, his body
was later subsequently stolen by resurrectionists.>>
---------------------------------------------------------
Moby Dick - Melville
<< "HEMP only can kill thee."
"The *GALLOWS*, ye mean.- I am immortal then, on land and on sea,"
cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;
- "Immortal on land and on sea!"
Both were silent again, as one man.
Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'
ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in
front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off
on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little
like a *GALLOWS*. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at
the time, but I could not help staring at this *GALLOWS* with a vague
misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two
remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me.
It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing
in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me
in the whalemen's chapel, and here a *GALLOWS*!>>
------------------------------------------------------------
Q2 & Folio: "CLAMBRIN[G] TO HANG, AN ENVIOUS SLIVER BROKE"
V E R O N I L V E R I U S
A________ L
G________ E
A________ N
B________ K
O________ C
N________ N
[D]________ I
__________ R
__________ B
__________ S
__________ A
_________- M
__________ O
__________ H
__________ T
Genesis 4:12:a fugitive and a *VAGABOND* shalt thou be in the earth.
---------------------------------------------------------------
__ T O T H E o n
_____ {r}o [H] e
_____ {o} n[E] (M)
_____ {p} [N]e (A)
_____ {e[R]n___ (R)o
_____ [Y]o______ l(I)
_____ O.E.______ (H)
_____ [W]
_____ [R]
_____ [E|
_____ [S|
_____ [L|H]
_____ [E|T]
_____ [Y|O]
_____ |I]
-------------------------------------------------------------
*GIBBET* , n. [OE. gibet, F. gibet, in OF. also club, fr. LL. gibetum;
cf. OF. *GIBE* sort of sickle or hook, It. giubbetto gibbet, and
giubbetta, dim. of giubba mane, also, an under waistcoat, doublet,
Prov. It. gibba); so that it perhaps originally signified a halter,
a *ROPE* round the neck of malefactors; or it is,
perhaps, derived fr. L. gibbus HUNCHED, HUMPED,
E. gibbous; or cf. E. jib a sail.] 1. A kind of *GALLOWS* ;
an upright post with an arm projecting from the top,
on which, formerly, malefactors were hanged *IN CHAINS* ,
and their bodies allowed to remain as a warning.
*GIBBET* , v. t., 1. To hang and expose on a *GIBBET*
2. To expose to infamy; to blacken.
_____ I'll *GIBBET* up his name. --Oldham.
-------------------------------------------------
Antony and Cleopatra Act 5, Scene 2
CLEOPATRA: Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! rather make
My country's high PYRAMIDES my *GIBBET* ,
And hang me up *IN CHAINS* !
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.gorki.net/Art/fa12.html
<<A contemporary painting of the Earl of Southampton.
The dates of his confinement- February 8, 1600 to
April 1603- are on the wall. The earl's defiant spirit
is reflected in the motto "In Vinculus Invictus"
("Victorious though *IN CHAINS* ")
-- _Shakespeare in Fact_ p. 158 Matus
----------------------------------------------
*IN CHAINS*
*ISNHAINC*
.............................................
HENRICUS URIOTHESLEUS
per anagramma
*THESEUS* NIL REUS HIC RUO
_[I]ure quidem poteras hanc fundere ab ore querelam,
_[S]ors tibi dum ficto crimine dura fuit:
"[N]il reus en *THESEUS* censura sortis iniquae
_[H]ic ruo, livoris traditus arbitrio."
_[A]t nunc mutanda ob mutata pericla querela est.
_[I]nclite, an innocuo pectore teste rues?
_[N]on sane. Hac haeres vacuo dat *VIVERE* cura,
_[C]ollati imperii sub Iove sceptra gerens.
-----------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer