Tonson, Jacob | Mary Hyde (essay date 1965)
Mary Hyde (essay date 1965)
SOURCE: Hyde, Mary. “Shakespeare's Head.” Shakespeare Quarterly 16, no. 2 (Spring 1965): 139-43.
[In the following essay, Hyde considers whether a signboard with a large image of Shakespeare, which was exhibited in the United States in 1964, once belonged to Tonson.]
Any unusual portrait of Shakespeare holds interest and this is true of the picture used here as a frontispiece. It came to this country from England in the spring of 1962 and aroused considerable curiosity when shown at Shakespeare's Four Hundredth Anniversary Exhibition at the Morgan Library in April, 1964. It is unusual, first of all, because it is extremely large, an uncomfortable size for enjoyment within a room. The figure, which consists of head and shoulders, is one and a half times life size, making it hard to live with. It would dwarf a mantelpiece, and indeed hung anywhere in a house it would give the beholder the unpleasant sensation...
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