The Title-Page of The World Tossed at Tennis: A Portrait of a Jacobean Playing Company?
2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 53; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/notesj/gjl011
ISSN1471-6941
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Art and Culture Studies
ResumoTHE title page of The World Tossed at Tennis, a masque performed by Prince Charles's Men in 1620 and published in the same year, features a woodcut depicting some of the characters (see Figure 1).1 R. A. Foakes has shown that the image represents a specific scene in the masque.2 However, the woodcut may be of further interest: the images of the characters may be intended as portraits of the actors who performed them. Only two of these actors can now be identified, but this playtext may be unique in being marketed with portraits of more than one of its performers. The first actor who can be identified is William Rowley. As the company's clown actor,3 Rowley would have played the role of Simplicity, who appears on the right-hand side of the image. The costume is that of a traditional stage clown,4 but the artist has taken the trouble to give the image at least one of Rowley's distinctive quirks. Rowley was fat,5 and although Simplicity's torso is not represented as remarkably large, his legs are noticeably plumper than those of the other characters. This indicates that the artist was trying to draw a recognizable image of Rowley, and suggests that Simplicity's other distinctive features (the short beard and the strangely closed eyes) may refer to other physical characteristics of Rowley.
Referência(s)