Sharilyn Stalling, Eureka Springs, AR, USA, book review of The True Face of William Shakespeare by Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, amazon (21 September 2010) - http://www.amazon.com/True-Face-William-Shakespeare/product-reviews/1904449565/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

This book covers scientific research validating the true face of William Shakespeare and the bust that resides in Garrick's Mens club in London. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel spent ten years researching Shakespeare with bulldog perseverance. . she presents irrefutable facts that conclude his death mask has survived and . his bust and that with significant numbers on facial markings match his known portraits, like the Flower portrait, the portrait on his First Folio, his funeral bust, to be truly images on one man, William Shakespeare. Forensic science was used for validation just as would be used on anyone today. Because her research and efforts involved the best that forensic science has to give us today, it cannot help but be conclusive that William Shakespeare had to be a man of wealth . Only the wealthy had tombs with their bust on it such as is found in Stratford and his bust was done shortly after his death. Note: Since his father was the bailiff, known as mayor today, of Stratford, it stands to reason, William Shakespeare was not illiterate.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves Shakespeare or who would like to learn more about William Shakespeare.

*****

„About Shakespeare“, Art Quarterly (August 2007), S. 66-67.

Engl. Translation - About Shakespeare ART QUARTERLY - August 2007 _2_.pdf

*****

Fascinating!
Daniel W. Hays, Salem, OR, USA, book review of The True Face of William Shakespeare by Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, amazon (25 November 2006) - http://www.amazon.com/True-Face-William-Shakespeare/product-reviews/1904449565/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The professor makes a convincing . and very well supported . case for her major premise. Briefly, she establishes the authenticity of the Flower and Chandos portraits of William Shakespeare and the Davenant Bust as the work of people who saw or even knew William Shakespeare. Most importantly, she makes a convincing case for the authenticity of the Darmstadt death mask, which means it probably was taken from a plaster mold of Shakespeare's face made the day after he died.
Why is it important to know what Shakespeare looked like? Mostly for the sake of natural human curiosity. But also because the authenticity of these four items helps to prove that Shakespeare was a well known and important person in his own time, not simply an obscure nobody from a small town, as claimed by those who favor alternative authorship of the canon.

*****

Dr. Paul Doherty, Headmaster, Trinity School, London, Editorial Reviews, Chaucer Press, London

Professor Hildegard [Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s] study [The True Face of William Shakespeare. The Poet’s Death Mask and Likenesses from Three Periods of His Life, London: Chaucer Press, 2006] must now be an integral part of the obligatory Shakespeare’s corpus of scholarship. Her book is beautifully written and presented, a brilliant academic study which can also be thoroughly enjoyed by any layperson. Professor Hildegard [Hammerschmidt-Hummel] is to be congratulated on an outstanding achievement, it is ground-breaking and brings into sharper focus one of the world’s greatest poets. This book must be regarded as compulsory reading for all who wish to acquaint themselves more closely with the elusive personality of William Shakespeare.

*****

Extract from the Book Review by Professor Emeritus Michael Patterson (De Montfort University, Leicester) on The True Face of William Shakespeare by Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel. London: Chaucer Press, 2006. Pp. 208 + 116 illus. £25. Hb. ISBN 190449565
- Theatre Research International 32 (2007), pp. 327-328 - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1372084

Ours is a visual age, much of our information derived from images on a flickering screen. It is therefore appropriate that we should have a healthy curiosity about the appearance of our greatest playwright and also how his works have been depicted by artists in the past. Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s elegantly produced volume will surely stand as the definitive work which solves many of the mysteries surrounding the few images of Shakespeare that we possess. With meticulous scholarship and using techniques of face recognition employed by the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the author shows that the so-called Chandos and Flower portraits are almost certainly authentic and painted during the playwright’s lifetime. This establishes that the 1623 Droeshout engraving which precedes the First Folio was copied from the Flower portrait, not vice versa. Perhaps most controversially, the author is very persuasive about the authenticity of the Darmstadt death mask, demonstrating not only that its features exactly reproduce those of the other images of Shakespeare but also tracing its provenance with great care. It is thrilling to consider that an object that was in contact with Shakespeare’s face can be examined today.
Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s research, while leaving a question mark over the Janssen portrait, convincingly dismisses the claims of the Sanders and Grafton portraits (the latter embraced by Peter Ackroyd in Shakespeare: The Biography as probably authentic – see Ackroyd, pp. 159-60, 382). Two other interesting facts emerge from the author’s work: first, evidence that Shakespeare probably suffered from a cancerous condition, chronic skin sarcoidosis, which would help to explain his decision to give up the theatre and retire to Stratford. One might indeed fancifully speculate whether The Tempest is a reflection on his illness: a creative man, whose power is usurped by his own flesh (his brother) and cast out into frustrating isolation. The other insight is provided by the fact that the Flower portrait was painted over an image of the Madonna with child, suggesting that Shakespeare was, as often suspected, in sympathy with the “old religion” and needed to hide his adherence to it.
The translation (by Alan Bance) is fluent and reads well ... . What would amplify this already intriguing volume would be a website which allowed one to morph the different images of Shakespeare.

Douglas Galbi, Ph.D. (MIT), M.Phil. (Oxford University), B.Sc. (Princeton University), Senior Economist at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), “a Shakespearean portrait of bad public reason”, purple motes. A Journal of Whimsy and Hope (18 September 2006)

Internet Publication: http://purplemotes.net/2006/09/

... Just a few months ago:

ALEC COBBE was strolling around the Searching for Shakespeare exhibition at
the National Portrait Gallery when he was stopped in his tracks by a painting
that was the spitting image of one he had on his wall at home. ... Scholars
have confirmed that Mr Cobbe’s painting is the original of the famous portrait
in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington that was on loan at the
National Portrait Gallery exhibition....[The Times]

This is a modern enchantment: the possibility of a true, material discovery,
made solely by chance.

Discovery usually requires more time and effort. Over the past decade, Hildegard
Hammerschmidt-Hummel, a professor at the university of Marburg and Mainz, has
been a scholarly leader in discovering more about Shakespeare. Professor
Hammerschmidy-Hummel has extensively investigated primary sources, including
continental pilgrims' registries that have not previously been studied in
relation to Shakespearean biography. Her biography, William Shakespeare: seine
Zeit, sein Leben, sein Werk (2003) (forthcoming in an English edition entitled
The Life and Times of William Shakespeare) extensively explored Shakespeare's
Catholic connections. This work includes considerable conjecture and
interpretive construction. But much recent Shakespearean scholarship recognizes
the importance of Catholic faith to Shakespeare and also richly employs
conjecture and interpretive construction. Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel puts more
emphasis on Catholicism in understanding Shakespeare than most current
Shakespearean scholarship, but her standards of reasoning put her work well
within the form of legitimate contemporary scholarship.

Thrilling discovery depends upon good public reason. Early in 2005, The Culture
Show on the BBC broadcast an exclusive report on scientific investigations of
the Flower Portrait. Some considered the Flower portrait to be a portrait of
Shakespeare. The report declared: "it can be categorically stated that Flower
portrait of Shakespeare is a nineteenth century painting."

With respect to public reason, some aspects of the report on the Flower Portrait
are not impressive:

The report didn't indicate the scientists making the claim. Using a passive
voice for a new knowledge claim obscures agency and accountability. That's
particularly inappropriate for a new, categorical claim.
The claim wasn't made public in circumstances associated with scholarly
scrutiny. Making findings public on "The Culture Show" is rather different
than publishing them in a peer-reviewed journal.
Details of supporting evidence that would make the claim subject to
significant, independent review were not made readily available to the public.
Such evidentiary details could be made available globally on the Internet at
low cost. But they weren't.

Modern scientific analysis can provide highly convincing evidence about the date
of paintings. But the public support for the claim that the Flower Portrait of
Shakespeare was painted in the nineteenth century seems to be not much more than
the authority of the National Portrait Gallery. Francis Bacon, the English
philosopher and statesman who made a great contribution to the development of
science, would not be proud of this. Belief based solely on the authority of a
well-established, well-respected institution isn't thrilling.

More exciting, and bewildering, is Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel's beautifully
illustrated new book, The True Face of William Shakespeare (2006). This book
provides new information about four images that Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel
argues are contemporary images of Shakespeare: The Chandos Portrait, the Flower
Portrait, the Davenant Bust, and the Darmstadt Death Mask. And what of the
National Portrait Gallery's claim that the Flower Portrait was painted in the
nineteenth century? Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel claims that the National
Portrait Gallery tested a copy the Flower Portrait, not the original. She
includes two photographs showing clear differences between what she describes as
the original portrait and the copy. However, the National Portrait Gallery's
test of the Flower Portrait documents that the tested painting covered a
sixteenth-century Italian painting of a Madonna and child. That underlying
painting is a recognized aspect of the Flower Portrait. This gross conflict
leads to at least one firm conclusion: good public reason is here out of joint.
Fay, is there any hope for better reason? The Searching for Shakespeare
exhibition ignored Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel's work, except for a short,
dismissive footnote buried in the catalogue. The final essay in that catalogue
concluded:

We will never know what Shakespeare looked like. What is important for us is
to recognize the extent and diversity of reproductive portraiture of the Bard
and to acknowledge what lies behind the continuing desire for the authentic
image, the Shakespeare grail.... As an emblem of national identity and
cultural pride, it is without rival.

How dull. If scholars agree that what's important in scholarship, including
science, is high politics, then much of the personal thrill of discovery becomes
impossible. …

***

„Quello conservato in un club per soli uomini di Londra è ...
Il vero volto di William Shakespeare“ by Massimo Andreis,
Focus Storia (Giugno-Iuglio 2006), pp. 14-15.

Il busto che da 150 anni fa bella mostra di sé al Garrick club, un circolo londinese per soli uomini, potrebbe essere il più fedele ritratto di William Shakespeare.Finora si pensava che l’opera fosse stata realizzata nel 1758 dallo scultore francese Louis-François Roubiliac e che non reproducesse le fattezze reali del poeta. Ma l’ipotesi è crollata quando Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, una ricercatrice dell’Università di Magonza (Germania), ha confrontato al computer i lineamenti scolpiti nel marmo con quelli della maschera mortuaria del drammaturgo inglese, realizzata al momento del decesso e conservata a Darmstadt, in Germania.

Somiglianza perfetta. La corrispondenza di occhi, fronte e naso è perfetta. Soltanto la bocca è un po’ più sottile nella maschera, probabilmente per effetto dell’abbassamento della pressione del sangue che si verifica con la morte. E la somiglianza è notevole anche fra il busto di marmo e un ritratto conservato alla National portrait gallery di Londra, che secondo i critici rappresenta probabilmente il poeta. Secondo la recercatrice, che ha esposto i suoi risultati nel libro The true face of William Shakespeare („Il vero volto de William Shakespeare“, Chaucer Press), fu lo stesso poeta a commissionare il busto nel 1613, tre anni prima di morire.

*****

„Reconstructing History“ by Thomas Vinciguerra, The Week Magazine. The Best of U.S. and International News (20 July 2006).

... Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas ... What did these guys look like? Sometimes the cover of my black-spined Penguin text would offer a clue: a mosaic of Socrates, a painting of Augustine, a bust of Machiavelli. Behind those faces ... there was a brain that produced the works upon which Westesrn civilization is built.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my curiosity. ... The German art historian [sic] Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel has just produced a three-dimensional computer model of what she believes is Shakespeare’s head. ...

*****

„Shakespeare death mask ‘genuine’“, The Australian (16 March 2006)
[From correspondents in Paris - February 23, 2006]

A 17th-century death mask claimed to be that of British playwright William Shakespeare could be genuine, according to new research.
...
It bears the high forehead and prominent nose and beard associated with the Bard and bears the inscription „+Ao Dm 1616“, apparently meaning „Died Anno Domini 1616“, the year Shakespeare passed away at the age of 52.
...
The pendulum may now swing back in the mask’s favour, lab detectives have reported in next Saturday’s New Scientist magazine.

The force behind it is University of Mainz academic Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who is a champion of the mask.

She asked a specialist at the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation to compare two portraits widely believed to be of Shakespeare with that of a bust housed in London’s Garrick Club.

Using a computer technique employed by the police to test whether separate facial images belong to the same person, scientist Reinhardt Altmann found close matches around the eyes, nose and lips of the paintings and bust, leading him to conclude the faces were all those of the same individual.

Ms Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s next step was to compare the bust with the Darmstadt death mask.

Engineers from imaging company Konica Minolta Europe scanned the bust and death mask with lasers to build up 3D computer models.

„Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose,“ New Scientist said.

The difference is the lips on the death mask are thinner than those on the bust, but Ms Hammerschmidt-Hummel contends this is normal, for the lips would have shrunk with the loss of blood pressure after death.

British experts are yet to be convinced, said New Scientist.
...

*****

„Shuffled off this mortal coil by cancer’s cruel disfigurement blow“, National Review of Medicine. Essential News for Canada’s Physicians (March 15, 2006), Volume 3, No. 5.

Mainz, Germany - William Shakespeare died in pain of a rare form of cancer that deformed his left eye, according to a German academic who says she has discovered the disease in four genuine portraits of the world’s most famous playwright. Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, from the University of Mainz, says forensic evidence has been found in at least four contemporary portraits of Shakespeare. One of the challenges she faced was authenticating the true likeness of the poet. Says the researcher: „The Chandos and Flower portrait, the Davenant bust and the Darmstadt death mask, all showed one and the same - William Shakespeare. They depict his features in such precise detail so true to life that they could only have been produced by an artist for who the poet sat personally.“ The portraits show a growth on the left eyelid and a protuberance in the nasal corner, which seems to represent three different stages of a disease.

*****

„’Death mask’ of Shakespeare could be genuine: ‘New Scientist’“, Times of Oman (7 March 2006)

Similar to article „Shakespeare death mask ‘genuine’“, The Australian (16 March 2006) [From correspondents in Paris - February 23, 2006]

*****

„To be or not to be the Bard’s portrait?“ by Alan Riding, International Herald Tribune (Europe) (3 March 2006).

... just days before the opening of this show [„Searching for Shakespeare“, National Portrait Gallery, London], a German art historian [Shakespeare scholar], Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, presented a more definitive view, based on forensic tests and computer imaging carried out in Germany.

Using a bust of Shakespeare in the Garrick Club here and a supposed death mask of the playwright, she has offered a computer image of the „real“ Shakespeare, one that coincides with the Chandos and Flower portraits.

*****

„Shakespeare Died of Rare Cancer?“ by Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, Taphophilia (dot) Com (3 March 2006).

Text identical with „Shakespeare Died of Rare Cancer?“ by Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Channel (1 March 2006)

*****

„’True’ portrait of Shakespeare unveiled“ by Jill Lawless, Associated Press, Deseret News -World & nation (2 March 2006)

...
For centuries scholars have argued about the appearance of William Shakespeare. Britain’s National Portrait Gallery announced Wednesday that a canvas by an obscure 17th-century artist is - most likely - the one true likeness of the playwright painted in his lifetime.

„I suspect this is the closest we’re ever going to get to looking at the face of Shakespeare,“ said Tarnya Cooper, curator of the gallery’s 16th-century collection.

She said there was strong evidence but no conclusive proof that the so-called Chandos portrait depicted Shakespeare.
...

The Bard is shown dressed in black, sporting a gold hoop earring and with the strings on his white collar rakishly untied.

Earrings were worn then by „people of wit and ingenuity and creative ambition,“ Cooper said.

Similarities in style to portraits of other Elizabethan writers strengthened the argument that the painting is of Shakespeare, who died in 1616, she said.

There is no definitive portrait of Shakespeare painted in his lifetime. Only two likenesses, both posthumous, are widely accepted as authentic: a bust on his tomb in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church and an engraving used as a frontispiece to the Folio edition of his plays in 1623.

The National Portrait Gallery has spent a year and a half conducting tests on several alleged Shakespeare portraits, subjecting them to X-rays, ultraviolet examination, microphotography and pigment analysis.

The gallery concluded that one of the best-known images, the so-called Flower portrait owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a fake, painted 200 years after the writer’s death. ...

Analysis uncovered chrome yellow paint from around 1814 embedded deeply in the work, and revealed that it was painted atop a 16th-century Madonna and child.

„Somebody had found a piece of wood of the right age to make a pretty convincing portrait of Shakespeare,“ Cooper said. ...

The exhibition brings together six of the best-known „Shakespeare“ portraits ....

It’s unlikely to end the argument about Shakespeare’s image. A book by German academic Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel ... names another contender - a bust owned by London’s Garrick Club - as an authentic likeness.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel, an English professor at the University of Mainz, said that forensic analysis has revealed that ... the [Davenant] bust and the Chandos and Flower portraits all „share 17 identical morphological features“ and must be genuine [just like the death mask]. Hammerschmidt-Hummel also noted that growths on the eyes of the portraits’ subjects indicate Shakespeare died of cancer.
...

*****

Almost identical with the following article by the same author.

„Shakespeare’s eye betrays rare cancer“ by Rossella Lorenzi, News in Science (2 March 2006) [http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1582326.htm]

„Shakespeare Died of Rare Cancer?“ by Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Channel (1 March 2006)
[http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060227/shakespeare_his.html]

William Shakespeare died in pain of a rare form of cancer that deformed his left eye, according to a German academic who says she has discovered the disease in four genuine portraits of the world’s most famous playwright.

As London’s National Portrait Gallery prepares to reveal in a show that only one out of six portraits of the Bard may be his exact likeness, Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, from the University of Mainz, provides forensic evidence of at least four contemporary portraits of Shakespeare.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who will publish ... the results of her 10-year research in the book The True Face of William Shakespeare, used forensic imaging technologies such as trick image differentiation technique, photogrammetry, computer montages, and laser scanning to examine nine images believed to portray the the playwright.

Four of these portraits were found to share 17 identical features.

„The Chandos and Flower portrait, the Davenant bust and the Darmstadt death mask, all showed one and the same man: William Shakespeare. They depict his features in such precise detail and so true to life that they could only have been produced by an artist for whom the poet sat personally,“ Hammerschmidt-Hummel told Discovery News.

The portraits showed a growth on the upper left eyelid and a protuberance in the nasal corner, which seems to represent three different stages of a disease.

„At Shakespeare’s time, the artists depicted their sitters realistically and accurately, absolutely true to life, including all visible signs of disease,“ Hammerschmidt-Hummel said.

A team of doctors analyzed the paintings and concluded that Shakespeare, who died aged 52 in 1616, most likely suffered from a rare form of cancer.

According to ophthalmologist Dr Walter Lerche, the playwright suffered from cancer of the tear duct known as Mikulicz’s syndrome. A protuberance in the nasal corner of the left eye was interpreted as a small caruncular tumour.

Dermatologist Dr Jost Metz diagnosed „a chronic, annular skin sarcoidosis“, while the yellowish spots on the lower lip on the Flower portrait were interpreted as an inflammation of the oral mucous membrane indicating a debilitating systemic illness.

„Shakespeare must have been in quite considerable pain. The deformation of the left eye was no doubt particularly distressing. It can also be assumed that the trilobate protuberance in the nasal corner of the left eye, causing a marked deviation of the eyelid margin, was experienced as a large and painful obstruction,“ Hammerschmidt-Hummel said.

Her findings have stirred a controversy in England.
...

The terracotta Davenant bust, which has been standing for 150 years in the London gentleman’s Garrick Club, was long believed to be the work of the 18th century French sculptor Roubiliac.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel traced it back to the times of Shakespeare through the diary of William Clift, curator of the Royal College of Surgeons’ Hunterian Museum in London.

She learned that Clift found the bust in 1834 near a theatre that was previously owned by Sir William Davenant, Shakespeare’s godson. Davenant owned many Shakespeare mementos, including the Chandos painting.

The most controversial seems to be the Flower portrait, which the National Portrait Gallery dismissed as a fake as it featured a pigment not in use until around 1818.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel contends that the painting is nothing more than a copy of the portrait she examined 10 years ago. The original Flower [portrait] had evidence of swelling[s] around the eye and forehead, while the one about to go on display at the gallery does not have these features, she said.

The Darmstadt death mask, so-called because it resides in Darmstadt Castle in Germany, has been long dismissed as a 19th century fake.

But according to Hammerschmidt-Hummel, the features, and most of all the impression of a swelling above the left eye, make it certain that it was taken shortly after Shakespeare’s death.

„A 3D technique of photogrammetry made visible craters of the swelling [in the nasel corner of the left eye]. This was really stunning evidence,“ Hammerschmidt-Hummel said.

*****

„The Model Bard“, Rare Book Review. The News Magazine for the Book World (27 February 2006).

‘God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.’ - Shakespeare

The true face of the great William Shakespeare has claimed to be finally found after forensic experts combined the facial features of a death mask with those from a bust.

The investigation, led by Dr Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, of the University of Mainz, declares to have proved a bust and a death mask are the exact likeness of the bard.

Scientists in Germany scanned the sculptures using computerized imaging techniques to show how they matched with portraits of Shakespeare.
...
The model of the similar features was built after researchers used the techniques to show that the Davenant bust [owned by the Garrick Club, London] matches pictures of Shakespeare. It was then discovered that the bust’s facial features coincided with those of the death mask, which is owned by the German city of Darmstadt.

The New Scientist magazine said: ‘Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose.’

*****

„Plot sickens in new Shakespeare portrait drama“ by Nigel Reynolds, The Sydney Morning Herald (25 February 2006).

Text is almost identical with the article „Lump above eye that ‘killed Shakespeare’. German academic throws art world into turmoil after using police techniques to examine portraits of the playwright“ by Nigel Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph (23 February 2006).

*****

„German Professor Claims Shakespeare Died of Cancer“, The Internet Writing Journal (24 February 2006)

Has any author continued to generate such controversy over his works so long after his death? The Shakespeare controversies heated up again when a German academic announced that she has now authenticated four new images of the playwright that she says accurately represent what the Bard looked like. She also announced that Shakespeare died of cancer, as evidenced by a lump on his forehead.

As the National Portrait Gallery planned to reveal that only one of half a dozen claimed portraits of William Shakespeare can now be considered genuine, Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said she could prove that there were at least for surviving portraits of the playwright.

Startlingly, she said swellings close to Shakespeare’s left eye, which she says are clear in several of the contested portraits, are evidence that he had lymph cancer. By dating the portraits, she said, it was likely that he had suffered for around 15 years in increasing pain and died from it. Little is certain in Shakespeare studies - nothing is known about his death in 1616 and much of his life is a mystery - but if Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s claims win backing they will throw the National Portrait Gallery’s three-year research project into the authenticity of Shakespeare portraits into serious doubt.

Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who teaches English literature and culture at Marburg and Mainz University, took the unusual step of using forensic tests used by German detectives to study the morphology of paintings and sculptures that are claimed to be of Shakespeare. Measuring facial features - nose, eyes, lips, chin etc - and the relationships between them she claimed that two paintings, a bust and a contested death mask of the playwright show identical characteristics. The features are so similar, she claims, that they must be the result of sittings with Shakespeare himself.

The four images with the morphological similarities are, she reveals in a book to be published in April, the Flower Shakespeare, named after the brewery family that gave the picture to the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1895, the Chandos Shakespeare [in the National Portrait Gallery in London], presented to the nation by Lord Ellesmere in 1856, the terracotta Davenant Bust, which stands in the Garrick Club in London, and the Darmstadt Death Mask.

So-called because it resides in Darmstadt Castle in Germany, the mask is dismissed by many as a 19th century fake but Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel says that the features, and most notably the impression of a swelling above the left eye make it certain that it was taken within days of Shakespeare’s death. She said: „The cancerous growths grow bigger as the dates progress. „Everybody else has missed them but how else would an artist know they were there unless they had seen Shakespeare.“ Research for the book has taken 10 years and she says pathologists, doctors, ophthalmologists, dermatologists and imaging engineers have helped her build 3D images to demonstrate the similarities.

Stanley Wells, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birmingham University, was not amused and called Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s conclusions „rubbish.“ We don’t have a clue whether her findings are rubbish or not, but they certainly are interesting.

*****

„To Be or Not To Be? Is This Bust the True Face of Shakespeare?“ by Sophia Shamhart, Phenomena. Alternate History (24 February 2006) - http://phenomena.cinescape.com/=editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Alternate+History

A bust that has stood scarcely noticed in a London gentleman’s club for 150 years is being hailed as the first authentic contemporary sculpture of William Shakespeare.

Forensic imaging techniques and medical studies comparing the so-called Davenant bust in the Garrick Club withz 17th-century death mask of the writer has convinced a German professor, Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, that the bust was made in the early 17th century, when the playwright was still alive, and not the 18th.

[...]

Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s research into the Davenant bust involved forensic experts from the German equivalent of CID, doctors, ophthalmologists and archivists.

It was long believed to be by the 18th-century French sculptor Roubiliac. But the professor traces the bust back to the times of Shakespeare through the diary of William Clift, curator of the Royal College of Surgeon’s Hunterian Museum in London. He discovered it in 1834 outside No 39 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which was adjacent to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre.

*****

„Four Shakespeare images are real thing: expert“, CBC Arts (Updated 24 February 2006)

A German academic claims that four images reputedly of William Shakespeare, including a death mask and a famous bust, are authentic likenesses.

Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who published her findings in New Scientist Thursday, also claims the playwright died of cancer.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel had forensic scientists investigate a death mask of the playwright, the bust and the several paintings that claim to be images of the playwright ...

The Forensics experts measured facial features and the relationsships between them in each of the works, a method considered reliable in courts of law.

„Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose,“ The New Scientist magazine said.

„The features are so similar in the bust, the death mask and two of the paintings, that they must be the result of sittings with Shakespeare himself,“ the professor of literature at Marburg and Mainz University claims.

In each of the images, there are swellings close to Shakespeare’s left eye, which may be evidence that he had lymphatic cancer. „He would have been in increasing pain with the disease over a 15-year period,“ she said. „The lump appears to get larger as the playwright gets older,“ she said.
...
The terracotta Davenant Bust, which stand in the Garrick Club in London, matches this mask in measurements, she claims ...

„Apart from the excitement of being able to authenticate the Davenant bust as the true 3-D image of Shakespeare, forensic examination of this sculpture and the other true likenesses - The Chandos and Flower portraits and the Darmstadt death mask - show a growth on the upper left eylid and a tumour in the nasal corner, revealing signs of the rare cancer that was the most probable cause of the poet’s premature death,“ she writes.
...
Hammerschmidt-Hummel is publishing a book, The True Face of William Shakespeare, further outlining her claims.
...

*****

‘Death mask’ of Shakespeare could be genuine’, The China Post [Internet Edition] (24 February 2006).

Similar to article „Shakespeare death mask ‘genuine’“, The Australian (16 March 2006) [From correspondents in Paris - February 23, 2006]

*****

„Scholar causes much ado about Shakespeare“, Web India.com (24 February 2006).

Source: United Press International, London, England (24 February 2006).

*****

„Scholar causes much ado about Shakespeare“, Science Daily (24 February 2006)

Source: United Press International, London, England (24 February 2006).

*****

„Scholar causes much ado about Shakespeare“, Washington’s Classsical Station, WGMS (24 February 2006).

Source: United Press International, London, England (24 February 2006).

*****

„Scholar causes much ado about Shakespeare“, United Press International, London, England (24 February 2006).

New theories introduced by a German Shakespeare scholar could create a midwinter’s nightmare for Britain’s National Portrait Gallery.

As the National Portrait Gallery prepared to report only one of six portraits of William Shakespeare could be considered authentic, German Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel announced she had proof of at least four genuine likenesses of the bard, the Telegraph reported Thursday.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel further stunned British experts by saying swellings near Shakespeare’s eye, which can be seen in many of the contested portraits, indicate he suffered from lymph cancer for 15 years - and probably died from it. It has never been determined what Shakespeare died of, the newspaper said.

If proven, Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s findings could sink the National Portrait Gallery’s three years of research into the authenticity of the Shakespeare portraits, the newspaper said.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel studied the paintings with the same forensic tests used by German detectives. The features on two paintings, a bust and a death mask are so similar, Shakespeare probably sat for them himself, she said.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s findings have been dismissed by experts at the Portrait Gallery. Stanley Wells, emeritus professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birmingham University, called her research and results ‘rubbish’.

*****

A N Wilson, Evening Standard (24 Februar 2006).

No Biography of Shakespeare has ever come up with a truly satisfactory explanation of why de died at only a little more than 50. Now Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, of Marburg and Mainz university, having studied the earliest possible portraits of the Bard, notes the swelling beside his left eye, growing larger from portrait to portrait, as a classic symptom of lymph cancer.

Needless to say, the organisers of the National Portrait Gallery Shakespeare show, including Stanley Wells, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare, have been characterically English. „Rubbish,“ says Wells. Well, the professor is a woman, isn’t she? And a Kraut, to boot. But, to me, her theory makes obvious sense of a long mystery.

„Is this the Bard I see before me?“ by Rob Edwards, New Scientist (25 February 2006).

[NewScientist.com news service - 24 February 2006]

Some nifty detective work on a little-known bust from London strongly suggests that a 17th-century death mask really is that of William Shakespeare.

Forensic imaging techniques have shown that the Davenant bust, which is housed in London’s Garrick Club, is the same person as in portraits of Shakespeare. The bust’s facial features, in turn, are „a perfect match“ with the death mask (far right), which is owned by the German city of Darmstadt, says Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel from the University of Mainz, who led the research.

Shakespeare died aged 52 in 1616, the same year inscribed into the rear of the mask, which was discovered in 1842. However, leading scholars of the dramatist argue that it was not a close enough match to bona fide likenesses to be authentic (New Scientist, 21 October 1995, p. 12).

The new twist in the tale came after Hammerschmidt-Hummel saw the bust in London. Historians had previously dismissed it as inaccurate because they believed it had been made 142 years after the playwright died, by the French sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac.

Hammerschmidt-Hummel asked Reinhardt Altmann of the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation to compare the bust with an engraving and two paintings widely believed to be of Shakespeare, including the famous Chandos portrait (above left).

Using a technique employed by the police to test whether separate facial images belong to the same person, Altmann found

„The death mask and bust showed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose“

close matches around the eyes, nose and lips of the paintings and the bust, leading him to the „inescapable conclusion that one person is represented here“, he says.

Engineers from imaging company Konica Minolta Europe then scanned the bust and the death mask with lasers to build 3D computer models. Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose. The lips on the death mask are noticeably thinner than those on the bust, but they would have shrunk with the loss of bood pressure after death, says Hammerschmidt-Hummel.

In a book published this week, she claims to have traced the history of the bust back to 1613, when Shakespeare could have commissioned it.

However, British experts are yet to be entirely convinced. Her results are based on „false premise“, says Catherine Alexander of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. She points out that many representations of Elizabethan men were „spruced up“ to make them look intelligent and rich, and were not really intended as true likenesses. That’s why busts and portraits from the time often look similar, she says.

„Startling portrait claims Shakespeare had cancer“ by Nigel Reynolds, Weekend Argus
(25 February 2006).

Different picture: German academic throws art world into turmoil

Text almost identical with article „Lump above eye that ‘killed Shakespeare’. German academic throws art world into turmoil after using police techniques to examine portraits of the playwright“ by Nigel Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph (23 February 2006).

„Shakespeare’s Face, A Dead Swan, and Dramatic Criticism“ by Natalie Bennett, Blogcritics.org. (23 February 2006).

Dry, serious scholarship, dispassionate criticism - that’s the theory of research and reviewing of the arts. But emotion it seems, is breaking out all over.

First, a German academic has claimed that not only does she know with certainty what Shakespeare looked like, she also knows how he died.

Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said she could prove that there were at least four surviving portraits of the playwright. ... Startingly, she said swellings close to Shakespeare’s left eye, which she says are clear in several of the contested portraits, are evidence that he had lymph cancer. By dating the portraits, she said, it was likely that he had suffered for around 15 years in increasing pain and died from it.

Now of course, what Shakespeare looked like on one level doesn’t matter one jot, but there is human curiosity - and an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery opening soon, which happens to claim that only one of the portraits is actually of the bard.

So distinctly unacademic language - „rubbish“ [used by Stanley Wells] is not usually an academic word, at least in reference to a scholar’s work.
...

„Is this the true face of Shakespeare? Bard laid bare in book claiming he died from cancer“ by Ian Johnston, Science Correspondent, The Scotsman (23 February 2006).

[Image, left] A laser-scan image of the death mask (in green) overlaying the Davenant bust, from the professor’s book

[Image, above right] ‘Shakespeare’s death mask’, found in 1849 and linked to the poet due to ist 1616 date and likeness

[Image, below right] Arrows show 17 points on the Droeshout engraving ... [matching] the Chandos and Flower portraits

William Shakespeare died of a rare form of cancer, according to a German academic who claims to have finally proved what the world’s famous playwright actually looked like.

Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel believes she has established that two paintings of the playwright, a death mask and a bust are all authentic after having them forensically analysed to the standard required in a court of law.

And each of the four images shows Shakespeare, who was thought to have drank himself to death aged 52 in 1616, had telltale signs of cancerous growths around his eyes that would have killed him.

But Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s findings, reported in today’s issue of New Scientist
magazine, have sparked a major controversy, as they fly in the face of four years of research carried out by the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery’s findings will be presented in an exhibition called Searching for Shakespeare next month.

In her book The True Face of William Shakespeare ... Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel claims to have authenticated the Davenant bust, previously believed to have been made in the 18th century, as a „true likeness“ of the playwright dating back to the 17th century.

It was among nine images - five paintings, a copperplate engraving, the death mask and two busts - which were examined using forensic techniques.

Four, including the Davenant bust, the death mask and two paintings, were found to share 17 „identical“ features that, Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel says, prove they were all made of the same person: Shakespeare.

She said: „Apart from the excitement of being able to authenticate the Davenant bust as the true 3-D image of Shakespeare, forensic examination of this sculpture and the other true likenesses - the Chandos and Flower portraits and the Darmstadtd death mask - show a growth on the upper left eyelid and a tumour in the nasal corner, revealing signs of the rare cancer that was the most probable cause of the poet’s premature death.“

Her publishers, Chaucer Press, said: „Each of the authenticated images of Shakespeare shows a growth on the upper left eyelid as well as a tumour in the nasal corner of the left eye, which was verified by Professor Walter Lerche, head of Horst Schmidt eye clinic, as an abnormality of the tear glands which would have proved fatal: cancer.“

The four images appear to show the swellings growing. In the Flower portrait they are twice as big as in the earlier Chandos portrait.

However, Professor Kate McLuskie, the director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, said she was not convinced that Shakespeare died of cancer and suggested a specialist doctor would want more evidence than a picture of a lump to make an accurate diagnoses. „I would like to look at the evidence at lot more closely before I agreed or disagreed,“ she said.

Prof McLuskie said comparing images ran the risk of circular logic - one fake image might be confirmed by another that was based on it. „A lot of these portraits tend to be of a generic bald guy with a beard,“ she said.

However, she added: „The new evidence about the Garrick bust is interesting. She’s suggesting the bust is much earlier than we thought. If so, its chances of being an authentic likeness are that much better.“

The National Portrait Gallery said Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel had been in touch „on several occasions“ to explain her work. However it added: „In the case of employing measurements of facial features, we do not feel that this methodology can help to confirm the identity of sitters in specific portraits.“

And Dr Tarnya Cooper, the gallery’s 16th-century curator, said: „Portraits are not, and can never be, forensic evidence of likeness. Most portraits from this period to tend to look rather alike, which is to do with painting style and similarity in the presentation of sitters.“

„Shakespeare bust a ‘match’ with death mask. Report: Models of both reaveal forehead, eyes [and] nose are a ‘perfect fit’, Agence France-Presse (23 February 2006). [Internet publication by: http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/cnspolitics/story

A 17th-century death mask claimed to be that of William Shakespeare could be genuine, according to work by lab detectives reported in next Saturday’s New Scientist magazine.

The mask, discovered in a ragpicker’s shop in 1842 and now owned by the German city of Darmstadt, has long been a subject of controversy.

It has the high forehead and prominent nose and beard associated with the Bard and bears the inscription „+Ao Dm 1616“, apparently meaning „Died in the year of Our Lord 1616“, the right date for Shakespeare’s death at the age of 52.
...

The pendulum may now swing back in the mask’s favour, the British science weekly says.

The force behind it is Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, the University of Mainz academic who is a champion of the mask.

She asked a specialist at the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation to compare two portraits widely believed to be of Shakespeare with that of a bust housed in London’s Garrick Club.

Using a computer technique employed by the police to test whether separate facial images belong to the same person, scientist Reinhardt Altmann found close matches around the eyes, nose and lips of the paintings and bust, leading him to conclude the faces were all of the same individual.

Dr. Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s next step was to compare the bust with the Darmstadt death mask.

Engineers from imaging company Konica Minolta Europe scanned the bust and death mask with lasers to build up three-dimensional computer models.

„Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose,“ New Scientist said.

The difference is the lips on the death mask are thinner than those on the bust, but Dr. Hammerschmidt-Hummel contends this is normal -- the lips would have shrunk with the loss of blood pressure after death.

British experts are yet to be convinced, the magazine says.

Art scholars say representations of Elizabethan men were typically enhanced by the artist to make the subject look intelligent and rich, rather than be true likenesses. This is why busts and portraits from the same era often look similar.

...

Dr. Hammerschmidt-Hummel said swellings close to Shakespeare’s left eye, which are clear in several purported portraits of the playwright, are evidence he had lymph cancer. By dating the portraits, she said, it was likely that he had suffered for around 15 years in increasing pain and [probably] died from it.

„Lump above eye that ‘killed Shakespeare’. German academic throws art world into turmoil after using police techniques to examine portraits of the playwright“ by Nigel Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph (23 February 2006).

[Above the text is a detail of the Chandos portrait showing both eyes. The caption reads:] „The Chandos Shakespeare was presented to the nation by Lord Ellesmere in 1856. Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel claims a swelling near the left eye is evidence that the playwright died of lymph cancer"

Shakespeare scholarship, lively at the best of times, saw the fur flying yesterday after a German academic claimed to have authenticated not just one but four contemporary images of the playwright - and suggested, to boot, that he had died of cancer.

As the National Portrait Gallery planned to reveal that only one of half a dozen claimed portraits of William Shakespeare can now be considered genuine, Prof Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said she could prove that there were at least four surviving portraits of the playwright.

Startling, she said swellings close to Shakespeare’s left eye, which she says are clear in several of the contested portraits, are evidence that he had lymph cancer. By dating the portraits, she said, it was likely that he had suffered for around 15 years in increasing pain and died from it.

Little is certain in Shakespeare studies - nothing is known about his death in 1616 and much of his life is a mystery - but if Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s claims win backing they will throw the National Portrait Gallery’s three-year research project into the authenticity of Shakespeare portraits into serious doubt.

But the first reaction to her claims in Britain was not positive. Stanley Wells, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birmingham University, called the German’s findings „rubbish“. And the portrait gallery claimed that Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s work was based on a „fundamental misunderstanding“.

Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who teaches English literature and culture at Marburg and Mainz University, took the unusual step of using forensic tests used by German detectives to study the morphology of paintings and sculptures that are claimed to be of Shakespeare.

Measuring facial features - nose, eyes, lips, chin etc - and the relationships between them she claims that two paintings, a bust and a contested death mask of the playwright show identical characteristics.

The features are so similar, she claims, that they must be the result of sittings with Shakespeare himself.

The four images with the morphological similarities are, she reveals in a book to be published in Britain in April, the Flower Shakespeare, named after the brewery family that gave the picture to the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1895, the Chandos Shakespeare, presented to the nation by Lord Ellesmere in 1856, the terracotta Davenant Bust, which stands in the Garrick Club in London, and the Darmstadt Death Mask.

So-called because it resides in Darmstadt Castle in Germany, the mask is dismissed by many as a 19th century fake but Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel says that the features, and most notably the impression of a swelling above the left-eye make it certain that it was taken within days of Shakespeare’s death. She said: „The cancerous growths grow bigger as the dates progress.

„Everybody else has missed them but how else would an artists know they were there unless they had seen Shakespeare.“

Research for the book has taken 10 years and she says pathologists, doctors, ophthalmologists, dermatologists and imaging engineers have helped her build 3D images to demonstrate the similarities. The professor, who has previously claimed that Princes William and Harry are directly descended from Shakespeare, will have trouble persuading doubters over at least two of the images, however. Research by the NPG last year found that the Flower Shakespeare was a 19th century fake using pigment not in use until around 1818. And the Davenant Bust has long been attributed to the 18th century French sculptor Louis Francois Roubiliac.

Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel says the bust was mistakenly attributed. As to the Flower Shakespeare, she risks even more controversy. She claims the picture in the RSC’s collection and rejected by the NPG must be a fake or a copy of the picture that she tested in 1996.

The NPG’s own research into six possible contemporary portraits of the playwright has concluded that only one, the Chandos Shakespeare, is a likely candidate. All six considered will be displayed for the first time together in an exhibition at the gallery opening next week.

Prof Hammerschmidt-Hummel told The Daily Telegraph: „I am absolutely certain of my findings. I dispute the evidence of the portrait gallery and Stanley Wells is not an art historian.“ Dr Tarnya Cooper, in charge of the NPG’s research, said: „My view about using measurements of facial features from portraiture is that this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of visual art. Portraits are not, and can never be forensic evidence of likeness.“

„Images ‘show face of Shakespeare’. Forensic experts claim to have proved a bust and a death mask are the exact likeness of William Shakespeare“, BBC NEWS (23 February 2006) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4742716.stm]

Scientists in Germany scanned the sculptures using computerised imaging techniques to show that they match up with portraits of the Bard.

The system, used by police, map out a person’s face to identify whether they tally with known pictures.

Elizabethan experts deny the claim, saying busts and portraits were not true likenesses so often look similar.

The investigation was led by Dr Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, of the University of Mainz, who has published a book on her findings.

The model of the similar features was built after researchers used the techniques to show that the Davenant bust matches pictures of Shakespeare.

They found the bust’s facial features coincided with those of the death mask, which is owned by the German city of Darmstadt.

Shakespeare died aged 52 in 1616, the same year inscribed into the back of the mask.

Leading scholars have doubted its authenticity and the credibility of the bust, which they claim was made 142 years after the playwright’s death.

Death claim

They matched the images with the Chandos portrait, the first picture bought by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856, which is believed to be Shakespeare.

The police technique, used to show whether separate facial images belong to the same person, found close matches between the paintings and the bust.

The New Scientist magazine said: „Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose.“

In her book, Dr Hammerschmidt-Hummel claims to have traced the history of the bust back to 1613, when she believes Shakespeare may have commissioned it.

She also claims that the death mask has a lump above the eye which she says shows the Bard died from a form of cancer.

Catherine Alexander, of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, disputes the results as being based on a „false premise“.

She said representations of Elizabethan men were „spruced up“ to make them look intelligent and rich and were not intended to be exact likenesses.

„Garrick Club’s bust of Shakespeare is a match for death mask, say scholars“, The Times (23 February 2006).

A German scholar is claiming that a terracotta bust in the Garrick Club in London is „the first authentic“ three-dimensional image of Shakespeare, created by a 17th-century contemporary rather than a French sculptor more than 100 years later (Dalya Alberge writes).

Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, professor of English at Mainz University in Germany, has used scientific tests to try to establish that the features of the bust are „a perfect match“ with the death mask (right, in grey, superimposed on the bust, in gold) owned by Darmstadt, the German city, and two portraits. She uses the findings of forensic experts and doctors, dermatologists, pathholigists, ophthalmologists, 3D imaging engineers and archivists. ... She says that the mask, which bears the date 1616, when Shakespeare died, was bought in London in 1775 by an aristocrat. The Garrick Cllub bust, known as the Davenant, has been attributed to the 18th-century French sculptor Roubiliac. It was donated to the club by the Duke of Devonshire in 1855.

„Mystery solved: Death mask likely to be Shakespeare’s“, The Guardian (23 February 2006).

A computer model of William Shakespeare’s head shows that a bust (gold) housed at the Garrick Club in London fits over the bard’s disputed death mask (grey). Researchers believe this proves that authenticity of the mast and bust.

„To Be or Not To Be The Bard?“, Seed Magazine (February 2006).

German academic Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel believes she has found the true face of Shakespeare. She made the discovery by comparing facial measurements on two paintings, a bust and a death mask. If she is right, you shall not compare him to a summer’s day - unless a summer’s day where you live has cancerous growths around its left eye. Hammerschmidt-Hummel claims all four depictions of the Bard share ... „identical“ features [the paintings even 17] and therefore, they depict the same person. She also says that all four show tumorous growths around the left eye. This cancer is probably what killed Shakespeare at age 52, not heavy drinking, as was previously suspected.

„Eye Cancer Killed Shakespeare, Professor Says“ by Nigel Reynolds, The New York Sun
(23 February 2006).

Identical with article „Lump above eye that ‘killed Shakespeare’. German academic throws art world into turmoil after using police techniques to examine portraits of the playwright“ by Nigel Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph (23 February 2006).

Lawrence van Gelder, „The Many Faces of Shakespeare: Is This One Really His?“, The New York Times [Sunday Book Review] (23 February 2006).

Is a death mask found in a ragpicker’s shop in 1842 that of William Shakespeare? This coming Saturday’s issue of the British weekly New Scientist says the mask, bearing the date 1616 and the high forehead, prominent nose and beard associated with Shakespeare, could be, Agence France-Presse reported. At the behest of of Prof. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, a scholar of English literature at the University of Mainz in Germany, specialists at the German Federal Bureau of Investigation compared two portraits widely believed to be of Shakespeare with a bust in the Garrick Club in London and concluded that all the faces belonged to the same person.

Then engineers at Konica Minolta Europe scanned the bust and the death mask with lasers to construct three-dimensional computer models. ‘Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose,’ New Scientist reports. But the lips on the death mask, owned by the city of Darmstadt, Germany, were thinner than those on the bust. The professor said the lips would have shrunk because of loss of blood pressure after death. ...

„The Many Faces of Shakespeare: Is This One Really His?“, History News Network (23 February 2006) - Source: NYT (23 February 2006).

„Portrait Controversy“, The British Shakespeare Association (23 February 2006)

Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, of Marburg and Mainz University in Germany, has claimed that there are at least four surviving portraits of Shakespeare. Her research has also led her to the conclusion that Shakespeare died of cancer. ...

„Is this bust the true face of Shakespeare?“ by Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent, The Independent (23 February 2006).

A bust that has stood scarcely noticed in a London gentleman’s club for 150 years is being hailed as the first authentic contemporary sculpture of William Shakespeare.

Forensic imaging techniques and medical studies comparing the so-called Davenant bust in the Garrick Club with a 17th-century death mask of the writer has convinced a German professor, Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, that the bust was made in the early 17th-century, when the playwright was still alive, and not the 18th.

The claim comes on the eve of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, called Searching for Shakespeare, which is to present four years of research on all previously recognised images of the Bard. The new research, which is published in a book, The True Face of William Shakespeare, next month, also questions the provenance of one of the other known portraits of the playwright and poet - known as the Flower portrait.

Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s research into the Davenant bust involved forensic experts from the German equivalent of CID, doctors, ophtalmologists and archivists.

It was long believed to be by the 18th-century French sculptor Roubiliac. But the professor traces the bust back to the times of Shakespeare through the diary of William Clift, curator of the Royal College of Surgeon’s Hunterian Museum in London. He discovered it in 1834 outside No 39 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which was adjacent to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre.

This was previously the Duke’s Theatre and owned by Sir William Davenant, Shakespeare’s godson and, perhaps, natural son, who owned many Shakespeare mementos, including the famous Chandos portrait which most experts agree is genuine and contemporary.

„He must have been alive“, the professor said. Superimposing the bust with a 17th-century death mask from Germany and other likenesses showed perfect matches between the forehead, eyes and nose. The lips on the death mask were thinner than those on the bust, but they would have shrunk with the loss of blood pressure after death. But the professor courts even greater controversy by claiming the so-called Flower portrait, which has been investigated by the Portrait Gallery and dismissed as a fake, is not the Flower portrait she originall examined 10 years ago.

Speaking from Germany yesterday, she said the portrait she examined had shown evidence of swelling aroung the eye and forehead, which she believes shows Shakespeare suffered from a kind of cancer of the tear duct known as Mikulicz’s s syndrome. But the one about to go on display at the gallery does not have these indications of illness - suggesting it is a copy of the one she tested in 1996.

„Death mask exposes the real Shakespeare“ by Tom Price, Daily Express (23 February 2006).

Historical detectives have unearthed the true face of William Shakespeare with the help of 3-D computer models.

Scientists claim their work proves a London bust and a 17th century death mask in Germany both portray the playwright.

The mask shows a swelling over the left eye, likely to be a slow-growing cancerous tumour. Doctors who studied the images of Shakespeare believe the growth was a lymph cancer which he may have had for 15 years and which ultimately caused his death at the age of 51 in 1616.

The bust’s facial features coincided measure for measure with those of the death mask owned by the German city of Darmstadt.

It was also similar to several famous pictures of the Bard.

Marvellous

Shakespeare died in the same year inscribed into the back of the mask ....

But scholars had doubted its authenticity, with many dismissing the bust and claiming it had been made 142 years after Shakespeare’s death.

The researchers used forensic tests employed by Germany’s equivalent of the FBI - the German Federal Criminal Office - to compare the Davenant bust, which is housed in London’s Garrick club, with five portraits and the mask.

A technique used by police to show whether separate facial images belong to the same person yielded close matches around the eyes, nose, lips.

Engineers from imaging company Konica Minolta then scanned the bust and the death mask with lasers to build 3-D computer models.

The bust and the death mask were superimposed over each other using a computer to create a 3-D likeness.

The research, which is published in New Scientist magazine, will form part of a new book, The True Face of William Shakespeare.

Author Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel from the University of Mainz in Germany, said: „He had intense features and looked very striking with his marvellous forehead and long nose. You can see from the bust how powerful and expressive his face was.“
...
Forensic expert said that if the evidence was produced in court then it would be enough for a conviction.

„Was Shakespeare killed by cancer?“ by Tom Kelly, Daily Mail (23 February 2006)

Death mask reveals a potentially fatal tumour on the Bard’s left eye

Almost 400 years after he died, a final act has been added to the story of William Shakespeare.

Scientists now believe that the Bard died not of binge drinking, but cancer.
...
The breakthrough came after German researchers studied four images supposedly of Shakespeare - including his death mask and a bust displayed at London’s Garrick Club.

Each shows a growth on the left eyelid, which increases in size in the later pictures.

Doctors who have studied the images say that this is evidence of a slowly-growing cancerous tumour which could have caused Shakespeare’s death at the age of 52 in April, 1616.

The death mask shows that it had grown so large that it was hanging over his eye.

The discovery came following an investigation by a German literature expert to find out whether the four images are actually of Shakespeare.

Forensic experts at the country’s Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation compared 17 details from an engraving ... that scholars agree are the true appearance of the playwright with the death mask, bust and two other paintings including the so-called Flower Portrait ....

The scientists said the results of the examination - normally used to identify suspects from CCTV footage - showed a perfect match.

It proves that the 17th-century death mask, which is held in Germany and which many historians had previously argued was not a close enough match to other images of Shakespeare to be genuine, really is the dramatist. And the researchers claim the investigation has established that the little-known Davenant bust, which has been displayed in the Garrick Club since 1855, is the only confirmed three-dimensional depiction of the Bard [from his lifetime].

The research is detailed by German academic Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel in a book, The True Face of William Shakespeare.

An eye expert diagnosed the growth as a slowly-growing tumour which was very likely to have become cancerous and fatal.

Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel, from the University of Mainz, said: ‘These enormous pathological changes - which have never been brough to light before - link all four images and identify their sitter positively as William Shakespeare.’

Following his demise, Shakespeare is believed to have been examined by his son-in-law, Dr John Hall, but no cause of death was ever recorded.
...

Editorial Review (Chaucer Press, London)

Book Description

In this groundbreaking book Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel offers a convincing solution to the centuries-old problem of the appearance and identity of William Shakespeare. She also answers previously open questions concerning the diseases the poet suffered from, why he abandoned his celebrated literary career prematurely, and what very probably caused his untimely death. By combining exhaustive academic research with the latest technology, and collaborating over many years with specialists from the most varied disciplines (including forensic experts from the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, doctors, physicists, 3D imaging engineers, archivists, and experts on art and literature), she has been able to prove the authenticity of the Darmstadt Shakespeare death mask and the Flower and Chandos portraits, as well as that of another, extraordinarily expressive image of Shakespeare: the Davenant bust (whose provenance can now be traced back to the early seventeenth century).

About the Author

Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel has taught at the Universities of Marburg and Mainz since 1977. She has published many important books including The Historical Drama in England (1972); her seminal three volume study of Shakespearian Illustrations from 1594 to 2000 (2003); and finally, now her new major biography which draws heavily on new historical and pictorial sources she has brought to light during a lifetime of Shakespearian study

'Praise for' The True Face of William Shakespeare

'A brilliant academic study which can also be thoroughly enjoyed by any layperon. … an outstanding achievement’   
Dr Paul C Doherty

‘Her theory makes obvious sense of a long mystery’
A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard

‘Superimposing the models revealed perfect matches’  
Rob Edwards, New Scientist

HHH  'succeeded in proving that the Davenant Bust depicts William Shakespeare’s authentic lifelike features' 
GEO

'I was not only impressed but also convinced by the author’s arguments, in view of which not a few leading scholars were made to look mere amateurs'   
Professor Peter Milward, The Renaissance Bulletin

HHH's 'elegantly produced volume will surely stand as the definitive work which solves many of the mysteries surrounding the few images of Shakespeare that we possess.     ... the author shows that the so-called Chandos and Flower portraits are ... painted during the playwright's lifetime. This establishes that the 1623 Droeshout engraving ... was copied from the Flower portrait, not vice versa ... [She  demonstrates] that [theDarmstadt death mask's] features exactly reproduce those of the other images of Shakespeare.  
Professor Michael Patterson, Theatre Research International

‘Over the past decade, Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel … has been a scholarly leader in discovering more about Shakespeare’  
Douglas Galbi, U.S., FCC, Purple Motes

e. Replies

GEO.de: „Genuine or not genuine?“ (Echt oder nicht echt?)- Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s Reply to Christopher Hudson, „The Real Shakespeare“, Sunday Times Magazine (5 February 2006), in:
GEO.de (14. Februar 2006)
[http://www.geo.de/GEO/kultur/geschichte/5071.html]

Whether the well-known likenesses of Shakespeare are genuine - this is a question Christopher Hudson deals with in his article „The Real Shakespeare“, Sunday Times Magazine (5 February 2006). Please read here the reply by the German Shakespeare scholar Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel.

f. Interviews

g. Press Release

h. Newspaper cuttings / Collage