Eric Roberts

https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/fine-art-prints/Paulus-van-Somer/1164252/'Mary-Sidney%2C-Countess-of-Pembroke'%2C-c1600%2C-1942.--.html

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

Hi Kate I share your intimidation of 'live' broadcasts. My greatest dread is public speaking. More to the point, I love your style of writing. It combines fact with flair and goes directly to the brain. You communicate VERY well. Podcasting is for talkaholics. You are too thoughtful for that racket.

KEEP THIS UNDER YOUR HAT One can read almost anything into this fathomless face; the ever-so-slight smile; the unmistakable twinkle in both eyes. William Larkin has done a brilliant job of detecting a personality, an identity, which is as much hidden as visible. Isolated from the rest of the picture, the 'self' of the sitter as seen by the artist is more apparent. In a silent way, it is almost as if Sir Francis Bacon is asking us: "Have you guessed the answer to the puzzle yet?"

None of the other claimants to the title of author of the Shakespeare plays has a champion like Jono. Erudite and satirical in equal measure.

Thanks Yann. Great find!

It seems that there's no such lodge as "St Albans Lodge", but there IS a "ST ALBAN" lodge in Birmingham as I'm sure some of you would know. What a difference one letter makes: a reference not to a place, but to a 4th-century saint and the founder of Rosicrucianism.

Thanks A P You don't miss a thing. I didn't even notice the eyes. As you point out both Hilliard's blue-eyed teenage Bacon and Steven van der Mullen's blue-eyed Dudley are anomalies. I'm inclined to trust Paul Van Somer who painted at least six portraits of Francis - all with hazel-to-dark-brown eyes Van der Mullen is also thought to have been responsible for the Hampden Portrait of Elizabeth I: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_van_der_Meulen Speaking of QEI, if anyone is curious about her association with snake symbolism, this might be of interest: https://omeka.library.american.edu/s/hardwickportrait/page/snakes#:~:text=In the 1600-02 Rainbow,to symbolize wisdom and prudence.

I can't resist sharing one more image of Robert Devereaux, from the picture that Yann posted. I found a large version on ARTUK: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/robert-devereux-15661601-2nd-earl-of-essex-171449 Although it's a fairly crude copy of a Gheeraerts, there is something intangible about it. Almost like a Russian icon of an obscure saint.

So we know that the mother of Francis Bacon and Robert Devereaux had "red-gold" hair. What about their father, the Earl of Leicester? Here's a short video on a portrait of Robert Dudley which depicts him as having an auburn beard like Francis. As portrayed by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Robert Devereaux's beard is redder that Bacon's, similar in colour to Queen Elizabeth's hair in most of her portraits. The first two pictures are copies and not by Gheeraerts. The second pair are by him. All four were painted in the last few years of the 16th century. William Larkin gives Francis Bacon a distinctly ginger beard in both his 1610 and 1617 portraits. Make of this what you will...

Where the Tudor Red-Gold Hair came from? June 25, 2010 by Melissa Virag Astonishingly enough, given that only 1 to 2% of the human population has red hair (statistics may have been different in the 16th century), by the time Elizabeth died, England had had a red-headed monarch (either king or queen) for 138 years! https://sucheternaldelight.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/where-did-the-tudor-red-gold-hair-come-from/

Thanks for finding the Simon van der Passe engraving of Thomas Coventry. I think what has happened here is that the artist has re-used his original master drawing for the engraving of SFB by transferring it in reverse onto a new copperplate. Although this would have saved valuable time in the studio, one wonders how Sir Thomas might have felt on seeing himself dressed in his predecessor's clothes.

Auburn = reddish-brown

A SELDOM SEEN PORTRAIT OF FRANCIS BACON BY PAUL VAN SOMER, c. 1618 Raveningham Hall, Norfolk https://raveningham.com/gardens/ The image below was found by Lawrence Gerald in the catalogue of the Exhibition of Late Elizabethan Art in Conjunction with the Tercentenary of Francis Bacon, organised by the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London in 1926. When I was researching the portraits of Francis Bacon, this picture proved to be too elusive. All I had was a description of it from a catalogue of paintings from stately homes in Norfolk published in 1928. Thanks to Lawrence we can now see it for the first time: A colour image of the painting has been requested from the owners of the portrait.

Hi A Phoenix Thank you for your terse, erudite exposition of the play. I haven't watched it yet but I have the BBC 1983 version with Helen Mirren on dvd. Your insights make me want to sit down and try and take it all in.

HI RPW. Good to have you aboard the good ship "The Francis Bacon". I haven't seen this relief portrait before. Where is it from and how old is it? Did you add the red lines? I hope you don't mind my correcting the symmetry slightly. When I look at each half separately the right side seems to be smiling while the left side is not. There is a marble copy of the Shakespeare Monument figure at Charlecote Park which is very refined.

Hi A Phoenix. That is a very interesting conjecture. If it is as you suggest, conditions on Earth are unlikely to improve in our lifetimes. If not now, when is the ideal moment? We could all do with some mind-altering revelations to shake us out of our belligerent selfishness (as a species, I mean). I liked Gervinus's epithet for Bacon: "renovator".

Wowwwweee! Now that's what I call a rebuttal. Thank you A.P. for being a never-ending source of Bacon-Shakespeare knowledge. So much to digest, explore, respond to. Gervinus was new to me so I looked up the reference you gave. What a fine writer, except that he can't see the wood for the trees. It's actually quite funny how he nails so many parallels between the Shakespeare plays and Francis Bacon's writings, yet can't bring himself to make the obvious leap - that they are one and the same person. In the final paragraph of the section on Bacon and Shakespeare, he brings in Aristotle's maxim that "virtue lies in the just medium between two extremes" without mentioning the Bacon family motto. I haven't read any of his meditations on the plays, but I suspect they are more interesting than many other attempts to penetrate the mind of SFB. https://archive.org/details/shakespearecomme00gervuoft/page/884/mode/2up?view=theater (Vol. 2) https://archive.org/details/shakespearecomme02gerv/page/n3/mode/2up (Vol. 1) A long, thoughtful, critical review of "North by Shakespeare": https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/blanding-north-hyde-review/ This quote says it all for me: McCarthy says of Thomas North, “He is Hamlet as much as J. D. Salinger is Holden Caulfield”

Hi Rob. For every psycho there's a genius. Take Bruce Hornsby from Williamsburg, Virginia (former member of the Grateful Dead). Anyway, this should cheer you up!

Thanks to Robin Browne for this quote: If you do love me, you will find me out. [The Merchant of Venice: 3: 2: 41] I wonder if there are other lines in the plays that Bacon deploys to alert us to his subterfuge?

It's a great article. Everyone should read. Well researched, challenging - yes, it is disappointing that the world didn't "awaken to Bacon" as the 400th FF anniversary came and went. But there is the 2023 commemorative issue of Baconiana which will go on opening minds for many years to come.

Thanks for your very helpful reply, A.P. Naturally, in terms of evidence, the contrived orthodox "explanations" for the differences between the two versions of Othello are entirely without factual basis. Great research!

Hi A.P. Could you please explain how we know that Othello was written in 1604, but not published until 1622/23. Also, how do Stratfordians explain the expanded and revised text in the F.F.?

Hi Phoenixes You packed a whole lifetime into 7-8 //graphs. If ever there was a ready-made Shakespearean character, Villiers fits the bill. It would be interesting (but too exhausting) to make a study of all of his portraits and see the gradual process of time on that renowned visage. Here is a quick look at a few of them. Let's start with the most ridiculous and end with the most ravishing. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00881/George-Villiers-1st-Duke-of-Buckingham https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/george-villiers-16281687-2nd-duke-of-buckingham-governor-of-the-charterhouse-from-1670-304127 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_patronage_of_George_Villiers,_1st_Duke_of_Buckingham#/media/File:George_Villiers,_1st_Duke_of_Buckingham.jpg https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14056 https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/old-master-paintings/portrait-of-george-villiers-1592-1628-1st-duke-of Close-up: https://www.rct.uk/collection/405872/george-villiers-first-duke-of-buckingham-1592-1628 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Villiers,_1st_Duke_of_Buckingham#/media/File:Portrait_of_George_Villiers,_1st_Duke_of_Buckingham_(by_Peter_Paul_Rubens).jpg And here are his two sons who were raised by Charles I after Villiers' murder. https://www.rct.uk/collection/404401/george-villiers-2nd-duke-of-buckingham-1628-87-and-lord-francis-villiers-1629-48

Timeless. Terrific!