The Times February 23, 2006
Garrick Club's bust of Shakespeare is a match for death mask, say scholars
By Dalya Alberge
A German scholar is claiming that a terracotta bust in the Garrick Club in London is “the first authentic” three-dimensional image of Shakespeare, created by a 17th-century contemporary rather than a French sculptor more than 100 years later.
Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, professor of English at Mainz University in Germany, has used scientific tests to try to establish that the features of the bust are “a perfect match” with the death mask owned by Darmstadt, the German city, and two portraits. She uses the findings of forensic experts and doctors, dermatologists, pathologists, ophthalmologists, 3D imaging engineers and archivists. Disputing suggestions by scholars that the death mask has nothing to do with Shakespeare, she says that its facial features share 17 traits with the paintings and the bust — which “would be more than enough to convict a criminal in a court of law”. She says that the mask, which bears the date 1616, when Shakespeare died, was bought in London in 1775 by an aristocrat.
The Garrick Club bust, known as the Davenant, has been attributed to the 18th-century French sculptor Roubiliac. It was donated to the club by the Duke of Devonshire in 1855.
thetimesonline.co.uk
Garrick Club's bust of Shakespeare is a match for death mask, say scholars
By Dalya Alberge
A German scholar is claiming that a terracotta bust in the Garrick Club in London is “the first authentic” three-dimensional image of Shakespeare, created by a 17th-century contemporary rather than a French sculptor more than 100 years later.
Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, professor of English at Mainz University in Germany, has used scientific tests to try to establish that the features of the bust are “a perfect match” with the death mask owned by Darmstadt, the German city, and two portraits. She uses the findings of forensic experts and doctors, dermatologists, pathologists, ophthalmologists, 3D imaging engineers and archivists. Disputing suggestions by scholars that the death mask has nothing to do with Shakespeare, she says that its facial features share 17 traits with the paintings and the bust — which “would be more than enough to convict a criminal in a court of law”. She says that the mask, which bears the date 1616, when Shakespeare died, was bought in London in 1775 by an aristocrat.
The Garrick Club bust, known as the Davenant, has been attributed to the 18th-century French sculptor Roubiliac. It was donated to the club by the Duke of Devonshire in 1855.
thetimesonline.co.uk