The Flower portrait is the name of one of the painted portraits of William Shakespeare. A 2005 investigation of the portrait led to the conclusion that it was a forged artwork painted in the 19th century.
The name originates with the painting's previous owners, the Flower family, who gave it to the Royal Shakespeare Company. The painting depicts Shakespeare gazing out of the picture and wearing a wide white collar. It has a signed date of 1609, but many art experts had been suspicious of its provenance before it was X-rayed in 2005.
The picture has been commonly used, for example, in the covers of Shakespeare's published plays. It is similar to, and most likely a copy of, the Droeshout engraving, which appeared in 1623 in the first folio publication of Shakespeare's plays.
Read more about Flower Portrait: History, 2004 Study
Famous quotes containing the words flower and/or portrait:
“Slavery and servility have produced no sweet-scented flower annually, to charm the senses of men, for they have no real life: they are merely a decaying and a death, offensive to all healthy nostrils. We do not complain that they live, but that they do not get buried. Let the living bury them; even they are good for manure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)