[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 of being greatly out of proportion. The painting has in fact no qualities of domestic refinement, being bold, rough, and dark, striking rather than pleasing, and best seen from a distance.

It was clearly made for use outside, which its unusual form corroborates. The most obvious supposition is that it was a signboard. Painted on a single oval panel of mahogany, thirty-seven by thirty-one and a half inches, it has, along the outer rim, a simulated frame, a half inch in width, painted with such care that it suggests no further wooden frame was employed, that probably the panel as now seen fitted into a highly decorated metal bracket.

On the back, about half a foot from the top and bottom, are discolored strips, markings left by two parallel braces. These supports were about two feet long and five and a half inches thick, each formerly secured by eight large nails. Five inches below the top brace and eight inches above the lower are two sturdy iron hooks, still in place. Around the circumference of the panel are nail holes, every three inches or so. Many of the nails are still present and around several is a residue of lead; presumably the nails held a rim which was part of a metal support. Conventional signboard supports were often highly elaborate and ornamental, fitting the sign into the wall of the building with considerable artistic effect, or suspending it from a projecting iron rod; sometimes a sign was hung by chains from an obelisk or a post near the entrance to the building. The streets of London, and for that matter all towns in England and in Europe, from very early times (Shakespeare mentioned them) bristled with signboards, creaking and groaning in the wind. One could prophesy the advance of a storm, it was often said, by the increasing racket of sound. Views of the placarded streets are attractive to our eyes, but contemporary inhabitants considered them distasteful, indeed, the signs were noisy, often a nuisance, and not infrequently a hazard to safety—one fell in Bride Lane in London in 1718, killing four persons.

This particular signboard is certainly a Shakespeare Head, and its inspiration, though crudely rendered and considerably changed, is unmistakably the famous Chandos portrait. One of the changes is the reversal of the head, with the earring in the right, rather than the left ear. An interesting retained feature is the narrow oval painted border around the picture.

Mr. Jacques Vellekoop, of the London firm of E. P. Goldschmidt, turned the panel up in 1962, “something rather out of my usual line of business but I found it so interesting I bought it immediately.” He offered it to an American collector as a late 17th-century trade sign, saying “there is very reason to believe that this was Jacob Tonson's.”

It is this intriguing conjecture which is now the matter for further examination. Jacob Tonson (1656-1736) was an extraordinary literary character, publisher, bookseller, collector of authors, celebrities, and titled friends, “Gentleman-usher to the Muses”, Wycherley called him. He was a man of great taste and discernment, of courage and ambition, enormous industry and competence. He possessed a certain amount of amiability, sociability, wit, spirit, a great deal of gall and, particularly in the early struggling days, a good deal of meanness. He paid little for prefaces and nothing for notes, which inspired this description of Tonson from Dryden, one of his authors:

With leering look, bull-faced and freckled fair;
With two left legs, with Judas-coloured hair,
And frowsy pores, that taint the ambient air

and “Tell the dog that he who wrote this can write more.”¹ Perhaps these thrusts forced Tonson to display the qualities of consideration which he was quite capable of summoning if he wished, for, interestingly enough, the relationship between the two men improved after this collision. Later lines from other hands show a continuing and remarkable development of Tonson's powers of congeniality: Sir Richard Blackmore's “indulgent Jacob did the Muses treat”, Pope's “genial Jacob” and “you will make Jacob's ladder raise you to immortality”, and Rowe's “Thou, Jacob Tonson, were, to my conceiving / The cheerfullest, best, honest fellow living.”²

Tonson began his business in 1677 at the Judge's Head in Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street. His shop flourished and before 1700 he removed to Gray's Inn Gate.³ At this time, he took his nephew Jacob, distinguished as Jacob Jr., into partnership, a connection which proved extremely successful. Tonson made his final move in the autumn of 1710⁴ to the shop in the Strand, opposite St. Catherine's Street, changing his sign from the somewhat meaningless and uncongenial Judge's Head to Shakespeare's Head, a pleasing association with greatness which was typical of him (like his portrait by Kneller, painted with Milton's Paradise Lost under his arm); in this instance, the trade mark was exceedingly apt and meaningful, for Tonson had recently published Rowe's highly successful edition of Shakespeare. The name of the shop remained Shakespeare's Head under Jacob's management and under his nephew's. Old Jacob was for some years in elegant retirement in the country, entertaining and being entertained by the great, sending venison and cider to friends and enjoying the close regard of two Dukes. He actually outlived his nephew, but a son of the latter, again called Jacob, carried on the shop until 1767. Only after this, when the establishment was taken over by Andrew Millar, was the shop sign changed to Buchanan's Head, as a show of independence and Scottish loyalty.

But Tonson's admiration for Shakespeare was intense and Shakespeare portraiture was a matter of great interest to him. During 1708 Tonson considered bringing out Rowe's edition of Shakespeare (Steele dined at his house to discuss the project). It was undertaken and the edition was published the following year. The first volume has two portraits of Shakespeare. The first, the frontispiece, is an engraving by M. Van der Gucht. The figures of Comedy, Tragedy, and Fame were borrowed from the title-page of the 1660 Rouen edition of Corneille, this worthy's bust being replaced by Van der Gucht's portrait of Shakespeare, based on the Chandos picture. The artist left the background almost untouched, with the proffered laurel wreaths and branch in much the same position. The second portrait of Shakespeare, preceding the account of his life, is a different and somewhat better rendition of the Chandos portrait, drawn by B. Arlaud and engraved by G. Duchange. When Tonson brought out a third edition of Rowe five years later, he seems not to have had the Duchange engraving at hand, for he employed his own engraver, Du Guernier, to copy the two Shakespeare portraits, and the inferior work of this artist gave both the frontispiece and the picture before the account of the life a wispy and unsatisfying appearance. The earring, indistinct in the Duchange engraving, at this point vanished. In 1733 when he published Theobald's edition of Shakespeare, Tonson seems to have re-discovered the Duchange engraving, for he employed it, and the biographical portrait returned to the clearer and finer image of twenty years before. This whole subject is dealt with authoritatively by Giles Dawson in his excellent article in The Library.⁵

The point with which we are concerned here is that versions of the Chandos portrait were continually used by the Tonsons. It became in fact a sort of trademark for them and one would readily expect that their shop sign would be some form of this portrait.

But this assumption must be approached warily, for the Tonsons were far from being the only proprietors with a claim to a Shakespeare Head sign. Other printers employed the mark (and a very distinguished publisher still uses it today). Besides the printers, there were many innkeepers who also claimed Shakespeare as their mark. The trade sign authority, Herman van Schevichaven, noted that there were still (in 1867) at least eight Shakespeare Head taverns in London itself and, he added, there was also a Shakespeare Head to be found in almost every town in England where there was a theater.⁶

The two most famous Shakespeare Head inns in London,⁷ can, however, be eliminated, the first on the count of “beauty”, for Van Schevichaven reported that the inn in Little Russell Street where the Beefsteak Society used to meet was famous for its “beautifully painted sign”. Nathaniel Clarkson, he believed, was likely to have been the artist. The other Shakespeare Head, in Drury Lane, had an extraordinary sign painted by Samuel Wale (d. 1786) which could not have been mistaken for any other. It was a full-length figure of Shakespeare, five feet tall. This arresting portrait was enclosed in a sumptuously carved, gilt frame, and was suspended by rich iron work from a post; but it did not hang for long. The 1770 Act of Parliament authorizing the removal of signs necessitated its being taken down and it was sold for a trifle to Mason, a broker in Lower Grosvenor Street, where it stood at his door for several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other accidents.

Restrictions against signs as nuisances and hazards had begun in the last quarter of the 17th century and by the second half of the 18th regulations had become exceedingly strict. By 1760 various sections of London had ordered signs off the streets and the law of 1770 banished virtually all signs except those of inns. Towns in the country slowly followed the example of London and soon all places of business came to be designated in a less picturesque manner—by street numbers. Until the 1760's sign painting had been a thriving business,⁸ with headquarters in Harp Alley and Shoe Lane. Carriage painters, located in other districts, were also available, and were considered by many to be capable of making particularly handsome signs. Occasionally, an outstanding artist would paint a shop sign or an inn sign for a frolic (following the earlier tradition of Holbein, Correggio, and Watteau)—Hogarth, Richard Wilson, and George Morland among others.

In the spring of 1762, the wit, Bonnell Thornton, put on an “Exhibition of the Society of Sign-Painters”, partly as a nostalgic protest for a dying art, and partly as a burlesque of a serious exhibition of established artists currently being shown in the Strand. Hogarth was a prime mover, on the Hanging Committee, and, thinly disguised as “Hagarty”, he was a prolific contributor. The other “artists” named were members of Mr. Baldwin's printing firm. The catalogue of this wonderful jest, as well as numerous critical reports from the newspapers, survive and are such amusing reading that they suggest the need and the pleasure of a present-day revival. It is to be regretted that no Shakespeare Head was shown, though many similar signs were, and an opportunity for genuine merriment was certainly missed, to say nothing of the fact that a “Hagarty” interpretation of Shakespeare would have held considerable attraction then and steadily increasing interest as time went on. The artist of the sign-board under consideration was no “Hagarty”.

But, by the same token, the picture considered is not a burlesque. Indeed, it has no inclination toward humor as Inn signs frequently do. It was a serious portrait of Shakespeare, unmasterly in performance but wholly appropriate as a sign for a bookseller and publisher. That it was based on the Chandos portrait makes it seem particularly suitable for the Tonsons, because, as said before, they used variations of this famous portrait so often, for frontispieces, for engravings, and as a housemark on many of their title-pages. Their interpretations were always oval in form, and it is interesting to note that they, also, always had a little frame band around the oval.

Physical evidence supports a proper date, for Mr. Hubert von Sonnenburg, Conservator of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has kindly examined the picture. Indications are that it was painted at the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century; 1710 would be an entirely possible time. The mahogany board (which the Forest Institute specifies as Central American in origin) was first covered with sizing, the chalky white dots of which are still visible. The slight retouching of the picture is an attempt to cover up these white dots. The iron hooks and the remnants of nails on the back are original.

It is entirely possible that this is the Tonson shop sign, and if so this large image of Shakespeare must have been looked at by Dryden and Otway, by Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh and Gay, by Addison and Steele (who met at Tonson's sign of Shakespeare's Head), by Swift and Pope, and by many others, including—as it is my special pleasure to report—Samuel Johnson.

Notes

1. Dictionary of National Biography, Jacob Tonson entry.

2. Dictionary of National Biography, Jacob Tonson entry.

3. History of Signboards from Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Jacob Larwood (Herman van Schevichaven) and John Camden Hotten (London: John Camden Hotten, 1867), p. 66; A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers … from 1668 to 1725. By Henry R. Plomer (Oxford University Press for the Bibliographical Society 1922), pp. 291-292.

4. In Van Schevichaven “after 1712” is given as the date of removal but the DNB gives autumn 1710, with the reinforcing evidence that the Gray's Inn Gate shop was announced for sale in The Tatler, 14 October 1710.

5. “The Arlaud-Duchange Portrait of Shakespeare”, by Giles Dawson in The Library, 4th Series, XVI (1936), 290-298. Also, see “A Note on the Arlaud-Duchange Portrait of Shakespeare” by Giles Dawson in The Library, 4th Series, XVIII (1938), 342-344.

6. Van Schevichaven, p. 66.

7. Ibid, p. 38.

8. The Signboards of Old London Shops, by Sir Ambrose Heal (London: Batsford, 1947). This book supplements Van Schevichaven and catalogues Sir Ambrose's collection. He noted 15,000 signs from contemporary sources.