The ‘Felton’ portrait.
The ‘Felton’ portrait, a small head on a panel, with a high and very bald forehead (belonging since 1873 to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts), was purchased by S. Felton of Drayton, Shropshire, in 1792 of J. Wilson, the owner of the Shakespeare Museum in Pall Mall; it bears a late inscription, ‘Gul. Shakespear 1597, R. B.’ [i.e. Richard Burbage]. It was engraved by Josiah Boydell for George Steevens in 1797, and by James Neagle for Isaac Reed’s edition in 1803. Fuseli declared it to be the work of a Dutch artist, but the painters Romney and Lawrence regarded it as of English workmanship of the sixteenth century. Steevens held that it was the original picture whence both Droeshout and Marshall made their engravings, but there are practically no points of resemblance between it and the prints.
