"A Sculptor's Workshop, Stratford-upon-Avon

A Sculptor's Workshop, Stratford-on-Avon, A.D. 1619, 1857. Oil on canvas, 153/8 x 215/8 inches (39.0 x 53.0 cm). Collection of The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, accession no. STRPG-A: 1993-113.

The painting features sculptor Gerard Johnson carving Shakespeare’s funerary monument, a half-length sculpture of the poet holding a quill pen in one hand, a piece of paper in the other, and with his arms resting on a cushion. The monument must have been erected prior to 1627. In that year the first folio of Shakespeare’s works was published, and it was prefaced by a poem by Leonard Digges that mentions “thy Stratford monument.” The present location of the principal version of Wallis’s painting is untraced but a smaller replica version is in The Royal Shakespeare Company Collection in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Wallis attempted to make his picture as historically accurate as possible, but time has proven him incorrect. As Sanders has written: “The painting is a complete theatrical fiction. As far as we know, Shakespeare's monument was made in Southwark and not in Stratford, and the death mask, shown being held by Ben Jonson in the painting, was a pious fraud discovered in Germany in 1849. Moreover, the stone spire of Holy Trinity, Stratford, which appears through the open frontage of the workshop, was only added to the church in 1763 (it replaced an earlier wooden spire)” (57). In 1857, when Wallis painted his picture, whitewash still obscured the original colour of the effigy in Holy Trinity church and it was repainted only in 1861. Wallis obviously knew it had once been coloured because the small maquette of the whole monument shown in the foreground is polychromed.

The Painting’s Reception

When the principal version was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857, no. 458, the reviewer of The Art Journal declared: “In this picture we find a sculptor at work, at the bust of Shakespeare, which is in Stratford Church. The bust is before him, and a gentleman stands near holding a plaster mask and suggesting some improvement. The subject is at once clear, but the picture is not so forcible as the Chatterton picture of last year” (173). The critic of The Saturday Review felt what Wallis was attempting in this picture was a conjunction of Old and New Art:

“The ‘Sculptor finishing Shakespeare's Stratford Bust,’ appeals to the ordinary educated English sympathies, and is good, but not so good as the ‘Montaigne’ [Montaigne, the Library] . It has a large scope of meaning; and in bringing together, as accessories, of this simple atelier, the Gothic corbels and a religious statue, together with an Italian model of the human muscles, Mr. Wallis, we presume, intended to indicate that meeting of the Old Art and the New which Shakespeare himself symbolized. There is much truthfulness in representing the sculptor of this famous bust as comparatively commonplace in character. He looks intelligent, but hardly equal to the great work which he has produced, instigated and encouraged by one of the poet's friends - Burbage is it or Southampton? - but scarcely conscious of his own success. There is a touch of German humour in the sculptor's children and their art-school of toys. By the way, the creeper, with its scarlet flowers, was not in England regnante Jacobo - or we have mistaken the botany; and the dull Stratford landscape is below the mark. [476]

The critic for The Athenaeum clarified who the individual was standing next to the sculptor:

Mr. Wallis makes no advance this year, but, nevertheless, holds his place. We must not expect a double crop every season. He has two pictures, one of which is only a sentiment, and another, which is only a historical portrait with real background. A Sculptor's Workshop, Stratford-on-Avon, A.D. 1617 (458), shows us a red-haired eccentric sort of sculptor giving the finishing touch to the Stratford bust of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson looking on and comparing the post-mortem cast with the statuary's result. Some children play at the open door, and through the window we see the silver Avon, the church where the great man's ashes lie, and some harshly green turf and trees. An unpleasant foxiness besets and hurts the picture, red hair abounds, and one of the playing children is dressed in orange. The bust of Shakespeare, however, is painted with a most loving and well-spent care. It seems to live, and affects the mind with the feeling that it is about to speak. The gloom and dusk, too, of the shed throw a solemn feeling about the august face and the earnest, devotional look of the friend in his slashed dress, with its lines of scarlet. We see no reason, however, that the children should be in the dress of the nineteenth century. [602]

The Illustrated London News once again points out Wallis’s success in the handling of light and shade which reviewers had commented upon in the past:

’A Sculptor’s Workshop, Stratford-on-Avon, A.D. 1617’ (458), represents a long-faced, red-haired sculptor just completing the Stratford bust of Shakespeare; and Ben Jonson, with his wart, and in his best dress, pointing out – partly from the posthumous cast he holds in his hand, and partly from affectionate recollection – some little discrepancy in the sculptor’s work. Three or four children are playing about, and a model of the monument which surrounds the bust is on the floor. The church is seen through the window; and the Avon, with of course some swans, flows gently between. In this picture the light and shade is again seen to be Mr. Wallis’s forte. In respect to the authority for the posthumous cast Chantrey [Francis Legatt Chantrey] was of the opinion that in the Stratford bust there was sufficient internal evidence alone, as for instance in the dissimilarity of the two sides of the face, to prove that such a cast was taken. [508]

Links to Related Material

Bibliography

“The Exhibition of the Royal Academy.” The Art Journal, New Series III (June 1, 1857): 165-76.

“Fine Arts. Royal Academy.” The Athenaeum, No. 1541 (May 9, 1857): 601-03.

“Exhibition of the Royal Academy.” The Illustrated London News XXIII (May 23, 1857): 508.

Lessens, Ronald and Dennis T. Lanigan, Henry Wallis. From Pre-Raphaelite Painter to Collector/Connoisseur. Woodbridge: ACC Art Books, 2019, cat. 25, 93-94.

“The Royal Academy Exhibition.” The Saturday Review III (May 23, 1857): 475-76.

Sanders, Andrew. In the Olden Times. Victorians and the British Past. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.

Last modified 17 October 2022