1914] Some Portraits of Shakespeare and Burns. 28 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 20, 1914. 



His Grace The Duke of Northu3Iberland, K.G. P.O. D.C.L. 

 F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



Professor Arthur Keith, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. F.Pt.C.S., 



Conservator of the Museum, Royal CoUege of 



Surgeons, England. 



An Anthropological Study of some Portraits of Shakespeare 

 and of Burns. 



[abstract.] 



I BECAiiE interested in the bust and numerous portraits of Shake- 

 speare in the following manner. Three years ago Mr. H. Oat way 

 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 at Stratford-on-Avon has made us famihar. 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 w^ell-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 original 

 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 



* The mask is described and figured by ]Mr. P. G. Konody in the "Illus- 

 trated London News," July 17, 1911. 



