Marlowe portrait
The Marlowe portrait is an unsigned portrait on a wooden panel, dated 1585, which was re-discovered in 1953 during renovations at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[1][2]
It has been widely suggested that the portrait depicts the English playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), a theory first advanced in 1955 by Marlovian Calvin Hoffman. No other portrait of Marlowe is known to exist.[3]: 214 [4][5]
The portrait is of a man, 21 years old, and expensively dressed. He wears a doublet, possibly velvet, with rows of golden buttons. The pattern on the doublet is made by cuts in the cloth, showing the lining under.[6] The man's stated age and the date on the painting match Marlowe's time at the college, but the evidence is inconclusive, and it could be another student.[1] The latin motto in the upper left corner reads "Quod me nutrit me destruit", in English "That which nourishes me destroys me".[3]: 66 [6]
The portrait has become firmly associated with Marlowe, and is often used to depict him.[7] It hangs in the dining hall at Corpus Christi College.[6]
See also
References
- ^ a b Logan, Robert A. (2017). Christopher Marlowe. Routledge. pp. Chapter 4. ISBN 9781351951647. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
- ^ Wham, Benjamin (May 1960). "'Marlowe's Mighty Line': Was Marlowe Murdered at Twenty-nine?". American Bar Association Journal. 46 (5). American Bar Association: 509–513. eISSN 2162-7975. ISSN 0002-7596. JSTOR 25721185 – via JSTOR.
- ^ a b Wraight, A. D. (1965). In search of Christopher Marlowe: a pictorial biography. The Vanguard Press.
- ^ Nicholl, Charles (25 January 2013). "Exiting the Stage". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
A supposed portrait from 1585 shows a sardonic-looking young man in a snazzy velvet doublet, though the evidence that it is him is tenuous, and to identify the portrait as Marlowe's is in itself a kind of fictionalizing.
- ^ "What feeds me, destroys me: Christopher Marlowe and Corpus Christi". Varsity Online. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
Despite any real documentary evidence, it is indeed almost universally said to show the Corpus-educated playwright.
- ^ a b c Nicholl, Charles (1995). The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. University of Chicago Press. pp. 5-9. ISBN 9780226580241.
portrait.
- ^ Hopkins, Lisa (2005). A Christopher Marlowe Chronology. Springer. p. 191. ISBN 9780230503045. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
Further reading
- Erne, Lukas (August 2005). "Biography, Mythography, and Criticism: The Life and Works of Christopher Marlowe". Modern Philology. 103 (1). The University of Chicago Press: 28–50. doi:10.1086/499177. eISSN 1545-6951. ISSN 0026-8232. JSTOR 10.1086/499177 – via JSTOR.