The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0372  Friday, 28 April 2006

[1] 	From: 	David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Thursday, 27 Apr 2006 10:43:18 -0500
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine

[2] 	From: 	Jeffrey Jordan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Thursday, 27 Apr 2006 12:28:52 -0500
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 27 Apr 2006 10:43:18 -0500
Subject: 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine

Elliott Stone wrote:

 >Thoughts while shaving:
 >
 >1. Why, if the First Folio was such a high end expensive book
 >did the editors choose such a complete unknown as Martin
 >Droeshout to do the engraving?
 >
 >2. Why, make such a fuss about the accuracy of the likeness
 >when it was virtually certain that young Droeshout could not
 >possibly have met Shakespeare?
 >
 >3. In this age, when everyone is falling over each other questioning
 >Shakespeare's Catholic connections, why, are we not talking about
 >Droeshout's Catholic religion?  We know that he fled England for
 >Spain where he worked illustrating the Catholic Index for the
 >Cardinal!

Mr. Stone is apparently not familiar with the latest scholarship on 
Martin Droeshout by Mary Edmond, which has rubbished the old tradition 
(dating back to the late 19th century but based on very little evidence) 
that the engraver of the Folio portrait was the Martin Droeshout born in 
1601.  As Edmond has shown persuasively in an article in Shakespeare 
Quarterly in 1991, and also in her recent Oxford DNB article on 
Droeshout, the engraver was almost certainly the Martin Droeshout born 
in the late 1560s, who was a member of the Painter-Stainers' Company of 
London.  There is no specific evidence that he ever went to the 
continent, though he did marry women from Brussels and Antwerp.  The boy 
born in 1601 was this Martin Droeshout's nephew, but there is no 
evidence that the younger Martin was ever an engraver.

Dave Kathman
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Jeffrey Jordan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 27 Apr 2006 12:28:52 -0500
Subject: 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0365 Chandos Portrait Probably Genuine

 >1. Why, if the First Folio was such a high end expensive
 >book did the editors choose such a complete unknown
 >as Martin Droeshout to do the engraving?

The family name was known, since his father and older brother were 
established engravers, as I understand it.  So the "complete unknown" 
isn't accurate, as far as the Droeshout family name goes, anyway.

I did a search of the archives here, and noticed an assertion that 
Martin Droeshout went to the same church as Ben Jonson.  Is that a 
confirmed fact?  Since Jonson did the nice poem for the FF, the 
acquaintance between Jonson and Droeshout (if that's true) might be 
enough to explain Martin Droeshout doing the engraving.

The assertion of Droeshout and Jonson attending the same church is in a 
post by Elliott Stone, 04/22/05.

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