An anthropological study of some portraits of Shakespeare and of Burns : (abstract) / Arthur Keith.

  • Keith, Arthur, Sir, 1866-1955.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An anthropological study of some portraits of Shakespeare and of Burns : (abstract) / Arthur Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    c ■ WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, His Grace The Duke of Northumberlani An Anthropological Study of some Portrait and of Burns. Professor Arthur Keith, M.D. LL.D. Conservator of the Museum, Royal Co F.R.S., President, in the Cha Friday, February 20, 1914 — , j - Surgeons, England. [abstract.] I became interested in the bust and numerous portraits of Shake- speare in the following manner. Three years ago Mr. H. Oatway came to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, bringing with him a terra-cotta mask he had discovered in the shop of a curio-dealer in one of the English Midland counties. The mask* represented the features of Shakespeare—those features with which the monument a Stratford-on-Avon has made us familiar. There were numerous differences in detail when the bust and mask were compared, and the question had arisen whether the newly discovered mask might not be a squeeze—a modelled-up squeeze was the term Mr. Konody used in his description—from the cast which is said to have been taken from Shakespeare’s face after death. To assist me in settling the problem, Mr. Oatway helped in every way ; he placed at my disposal measurements of the original bust at Stratford, two casts made from the bust, one of them being the well-known Bullock cast; and he obtained photographs of the various portraits and busts which are believed to represent Shakespeare. My investigations of the Oatway mask yielded only negative results. As in the origina bust, the eyes are open ; the eyelids and eyeballs are modelled on conventional lines ; the lips are full, slightly parted and shaped so as to represent the condition in life. Neither the original bust nor the Oatway mask show any trace or mark of having been taken from a cast or model of a dead man’s face. It was also plain that there was a direct genetic relationship between the original bust and the Oatway mask, for every curl in the hair of the original bust was accurately reproduced in the terra-cotta mask. The features of the