Ashbourne portrait
The so-called Ashbourne portrait (English Ashbourne portrait ) is an unsigned, dated oil painting from 1612, which is in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington . The waist portrait shows the businessman and Lord Mayor of London Hugh Hamersley (1565–1636).
The image was acquired in the middle of the 19th century by a teacher in Ashbourne ( Derbyshire ) who, like some experts later, suspected William Shakespeare in the person depicted . The main reasons for this assumption lay in the age ( Aetatis Suae 47 , Anno 1611 - probably changed, originally 1612 ), which corresponds to Shakespeare, as well as the skull under the right arm, which was interpreted as a reference to the grave digger scene in Hamlet . Since a restoration in 1979, which revealed a previously overpainted coat of arms, it has been certain that it is Hugh Hamersley.
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- William L. Pressly: The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass . In: Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993), pp 54-72.