Portrait of Anne Hathaway
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| Shakespear's Consort | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Nathaniel Curzon (based on unknown original) |
| Year | 1708 |
| Type | Pencil |
| Location | Colgate University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Hamilton, New York |
The only surviving image that may depict Anne Hathaway (1555/56 – 6 August 1623), the wife of William Shakespeare, is a portrait line-drawing made by Sir Nathaniel Curzon in 1708, referred to as "Shakespear's Consort". It was probably traced from a lost Elizabethan original. The drawing is currently located in the Colgate University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Hamilton, NY.[1]
The image of the young woman with a 16th-century cap and ruff is contained on the verso of the original title page in the Colgate collection's copy of the Third Folio (1663) of Shakespeare's works. Beneath it is inscribed "Delin N.C. 1708". "Delin" is an abbreviation of the Latin "delineavit", meaning "drawn by".
This edition originally belonged to Sir Nathaniel Curzon, Baronet, (1636-1719), who married Sarah, daughter of William Penn of Buckinghamshire.[2] The work was handed down through the family to Curzon's great grandson, the Honourable Robert Curzon (1774-1863). His name is hand-printed in black ink on the top left of the initial flyleaf, "R. Curzon. 1850", and he wrote as marginalia on the second flyleaf:
- The manuscript verses on the next page
- refer to a drawing of Anne Hathaway which
- had been made on the back of the blank 1st
- title ----, by my great grandfather Sir Nathaniel
- Curzon of Keddlestone. This drawing was
- almost obliterated, and the remains of it are
- concealed by mounting the page which was
- loose, in the old family copy of this book = = =
- The printed verses are most rare, if not unique
- in this form, I have never met with another
- specimen, they were intended for the very
- rare edition of 1663 printed without the
- seven additional plays for Philip Chetwinde
- This copy seems to be Chetwinde's edition as
- it has the title page, as well as the common
- one, and it has the 7 additional plays
- added at the end with a separate pagination[3]
As interesting is Curzon’s first attempt at penciling an explanatory note on the first blank recto, presumably made prior to the existing description above. Apparently, he started too far down the page and his script was too large for the remaining area since he ran out of space before finishing it. He erased it and started anew on the second flyleaf as reproduced above. However, a faint impression remains and George M. Friend, writing in 1972, examined the Folio first-hand and made out the following, which interestingly recounts that the image was “faintly traced.”[4]
- The manuscript verses on the
- first leaf refer to a drawing
- which was very faintly traced
- on the title, which together
- with the first three leaves was
- loose, and were all mounted
- to preserve them from further
- damage. The first title of
- all is of very faint clarity [?]
- as is also the leaf of verses
- and only occurs in the 1st…[undecipherable text]
The "Philip Chetwinde" mentioned was the publisher of the Third Folio.[5] As Curzon notes, the 1664 version of his edition contained seven extra plays, listed on an added title page, not included in earlier editions. The verses referred to are found on the third flyleaf beneath Ben Jonson's verse referencing Martin Droeshout's famous portrait engraving of Shakespeare on the facing page.[6] Inscribed in ink by Sir Nathaniel, followed by his initials and the year 1708, they are:
- This figure, that thou there seest put
- It was for Shakespear's Consort cut
- Wherein the Graver had a strife
- With Nature to outdo the Life
- O had he Her Complexion shewn
- As plain as He's the outline Drawn
- The plate, believe me, would surpass
- All that was ever made in brass
- N.C. 1708
These lines are a pastiche of Jonson's poem about the Droeshout portrait, replicating several of its lines verbatim.[7]
Provenance
The volume in question is in a nineteenth-century binding with the baronial seal of Robert Curzon, 14th Baron Zouche of Harringworth, stamped in the center of its front cover. It incorporates the motto LET • CURZON • HOLDE WHAT • CVRZON • HELDE • encircled around it.[8] The implication is that the volume would remain within the Curzon family and that Robert Curzon’s notes were intended for future Curzon family members.
Despite Curzon’s intentions, in the early 20th century, rare book collector James C. Colgate (23 May 1863 - 26 February 1944) purchased the volume. A longtime member of the board of trustees, he gave the Curzon Third Folio, along with 55 other volumes of Shakespeare including the First, Second and Fourth Folios, to Colgate University in 1942.[8]
The Third Folio is extremely rare, more so than the First Folio, due to a large number of copies having been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[9] In this Third Folio on the initial flyleaf, under Robert Curzon's printed name, someone - a bookseller or Colgate - wrote in pencil several paragraphs about the volume's provenance and its unique contents, noting, "The portrait is also signed and dated 1708, but it is quite obvious that it is copied from some Elizabethan or Jacobean painting or drawing that is now unknown to exist."[10]