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Shakespeare & Beyond

Five Faces of Shakespeare

Miss C.B. Currie. Miniature, Cosway binding, 1928. James Boaden, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures. 1824. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Miss C.B. Currie. Miniature, Cosway binding, 1928. James Boaden, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures. 1824. Folger Shakespeare Library.

One of the many treasures in the Folger collection is a remarkable bookbinding, of a type known as a “Cosway binding,” that includes five miniature versions of works of art that are said to have shown how Shakespeare once looked. The tiny, colorful paintings start at upper left with a print by William Marshall from the 1640 Poems of Shakespeare, followed at upper right by the Janssen portrait, formerly attributed to Cornelius Janssen; the Martin Droeshout engraving from the 1623 First Folio takes pride of place at the center, with the 18th-century artist Ozias Humphry’s version of the Chandos portrait, once owned by the Dukes of Chandos, at lower left and a whited-out version of Shakespeare’s bust at Stratford at lower right.

Unlike many rare bindings, this one also has some of the qualities of a modern book cover. The images are vivid and seem to speak to us more easily. That’s for a good reason. Despite its value and one-of-a-kind rarity (these are, after all, the original miniature paintings, unique to this copy), the binding was created in the 20th century, in 1928. It’s not even 100 years old.

Cosway binding, 1928. James Boaden, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures. 1824. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Cosway binding, 1928. James Boaden, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures. 1824. Folger Shakespeare Library.

“An Inquiry Into the Authenticity”

Like many lavish, ornamental bindings, this binding was produced for a copy of a book that was printed many years earlier. The book inside, published in 1824, is more than a century older. Sometimes, a handsome new binding has little to do with the contents of a book, but that’s not the case here. This binding serves as a visual summary of the book itself. Written by James Boaden, the title explains its nature clearly: An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures and Prints, which, from the Decease of the Poet to Our Own Times, Have Been Offered to the Public as Portraits of Shakespeare. Boaden’s book was a major early attempt to evaluate works of art that are said, rightly or wrongly, to reveal how Shakespeare appeared, and there are several copies of the book in the Folger collection.

Like the binding, the text of Boaden’s book, although it’s even older, feels somewhat modern, because it’s written on a perennially appealing topic. A few years ago, the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcast included an interview on possible portraits of Shakespeare with the author of a recent book, Katherine Duncan-Jones. Some of the same portraits discussed in that podcast episode appear in Boaden’s book and in this binding, too.

Comments

I remember having to read Shakespeare in High School. I loved it right from the first entrance!

Michael Thomason — March 3, 2019