Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel: The True Face of William Shakespeare. The Poet’s Death Mask and Likenesses from Three Periods of his Life

• Roger Pringle

It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged these days that the bigger the claim made for Shakespearian discoveries the more it must be in want of evidence. In The True Face of William Shakespeare some major claims are made.

Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel proves to her satisfaction that the Flower portrait of Shakespeare is a true-to-life image, painted in 1609, the date inscribed on the panel, and that it provided the model for the engraving by Martin Droeshout commissioned for the First Folio, 1623. She confirms the authenticity of the Chandos portrait, in London’s National Portrait Gallery, and the Shakespeare Monument in Stratford’s church, the latter being derived, in her view, from the Darmstadt death mask. She also pronounces the Davenant bust, in the Garrick Club, hitherto accepted as a fine eighteenth-century classical piece, to be a work contemporary with Shakespeare and created from life.

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