Shakespeare's Funerary Monument - History

History

The monument was reproduced and discussed in William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, published in 1656, in which the engraved illustration was copied, probably by Wenceslaus Hollar, from a rough drawing made by Dugdale. In Dugdale's depiction, the poet is not shown holding a quill or paper, and the cushion appears to be tipped up against his body. The art critic Marion Spielmann satirised the illustration, describing it as giving the impression that Shakespeare was pressing the cushion to his groin, "which, for no reason, except perhaps abdominal pains, is hugged against what dancing-masters euphemistically term the 'lower chest'". The print was copied by later engravers. In 1725, Alexander Pope's edition of Shakespeare's works included the first fairly accurate engraving of the monument, made by George Vertue in 1723. A drawing of the monument in situ by Vertue also survives.

The monument was restored in 1748-9. Parson Joseph Greene, master of Stratford grammar school, organised the first known performance of a Shakespeare play in Stratford to fund the restoration. John Ward's company agreed to perform Othello in the Town Hall on 9 September 1746, with all receipts going to help pay for the restoration.

Greene wrote that "the figure of the Bard" was removed to be "cleansed of dust &c". He noted that the figure and cushion were carved from a single piece of limestone. He added that "care was taken, as nearly as could be, not to add to or diminish what the work consisted of, and appear’d to have been when first erected: And really, except changing the substance of the Architraves from alabaster to Marble; nothing has been chang’d, nothing alter’d, except supplying with original material, (sav’d for that purpose,) whatsoever was by accident broken off; reviving the Old Colouring, and renewing the Gilding that was lost”. John Hall, the limner from Bristol hired to do the restoration, painted a picture of the monument on pasteboard before beginning. Greene also had a plaster cast of the head made at this time.

Shakespeare's pen has been repeatedly stolen and replaced since, and the paint has been renewed. In 1793 Edmund Malone, the noted Shakespeare scholar, persuaded the vicar to paint the monument white, in keeping with the Neoclassical taste of the time. The paint was removed in 1861 and the monument was repainted in the colours recovered from underneath the white layer.

In 1973 intruders removed the figure from its niche, chipping it out. Local police took the view that they were looking for valuable Shakespeare manuscripts, which were rumoured to be hidden within the monument. According to Sam Schoenbaum, who examined it after the incident, the figure suffered only "very slight damage".