Inscribed at upper right: "W Shakespeare." Title from Pressly. Date based on ruff and earring style.
Publications about material
The painting was reproduced for the first time in The Sketch on 12 April 1905 (clipping in Folger file); M.H. Spielmann, "The Portraits of Shakespeare," in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 24, pp. 787-93; M.H. Spielmann, "Shakespeare Portraits: The Burdett-Coutts Collection," in The Times, 21 Sept. 1921, p. 8; M.H. Spielmann, "The Burdett-Coutts Shakespeare portraits," in The Illustrated London News, Oct. 1, 1921, pp. 428-429; S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives. Oxford, 1970, pp. 466-467.
Provenance
Provenance: According to the 1922 sale catalogue, this pictures was first referred to in an advertisement in a Bath newspaper in 1801, at which time it was attributed to the year 1602. It then passed into the possession of Mr. Archer of the Royal Library at Weymouth. In 1862 it was purchased by Mr. W. H. Wills, a well-known journalist, for Baroness Burdett-Coutts; Burdett-Coutts sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, Auctioneers, 8 King St., St. James's Square, London, 4 May 1922, lot 133, repr., 300 guineas, bought by Wells, Sabin acting as agent.
Source of acquisition
John L. Clawson sale, Anderson Galleries, Continuation of Anderson Auction Company, Madison Ave. at 40th St., New York [1915]; 489 Park Ave. at 59th St. [1917]; from September 1929 combined with American Art Association, 24 May 1926, lot 730B, repr., $1600, Rosenbach acting as agent.
Exhibited
Exhibited: London, The New Gallery, "Exhibition of the Royal House of Tudor," no. 391; Mead Art Building, Amherst College, "Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Macbeth" (no catalogue), 1951. Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, May 2017- February 2018. Painting Shakespeare.
Cited/described in
Pressly, W.L. Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library, 166
