In 1856 the newly founded National Portrait Gallery in London was presented with a compelling painting of Shakespeare known as the Chandos” portrait. Yet, 150 years later, few scholars agree that a true contemporary portrait of the most famous playwright in the history of English literature actually exists. Using the questionable authenticity of this portrait as its starting point, this unique and fascinating book examines the connections between theatrical performance and Shakespeare’s references in the visual arts. Featuring numerous portraits and images of costumes, theater models, manuscripts, and maps, Searching for Shakespeare looks at the artist’s overall biography and life’s work. Portraits of Shakespeare’s contemporaries are also includedfellow actors, entertainers, and playwrights as well as his patrons. Insightful essays by distinguished scholars discuss a range of themes, from Shakespeare's sonnets, fame, and professional connections to his relationships with his actors, dramatists, and courtly and public audiences. They also reveal interesting background on the provenance and scholarship surrounding the Chandos” portrait, which has been copied, purloined, and reproduced since it was first linked with Shakespeare at the beginning of the eighteenth century.For anyone interested in Shakespeare, the mystery surrounding his identity, and the performing and visual arts of the Elizabethan period, this is an essential book to own.

Searching for Shakespeare

Arts & Photography

Cooper, Tarnya

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

For much of early modern history, the opportunity to be immortalized in a portrait was explicitly tied to social class: only landed elite and royalty had the money and power to commission such an endeavor. But in the second half of the 16th century, access began to widen to the urban middle class, including merchants, lawyers, physicians, clergy, writers, and musicians. As portraiture proliferated in English cities and towns, the middle class gained social visibility—not just for themselves as individuals, but for their entire class or industry.
In Citizen Portrait, Tarnya Cooper examines the patronage and production of portraits in Tudor and Jacobean England, focusing on the motivations of those who chose to be painted and the impact of the resulting images. Highlighting the opposing, yet common, themes of piety and self-promotion, Cooper has revealed a fresh area of interest for scholars of early modern British art.

Citizen Portrait: Portrait Painting and the Urban Elite of Tudor and Jacobean England and Wales (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)

Paul Mellon Centre

Presented in a beautiful gift format and filled with a wealth of new photography, this engaging book aims to introduce to a general audience the National Trust’s vast collections – a treasure chest of history. Arranged chronologically, starting with Roman sculpture and ending with 20th-century design, it focuses on museum-quality objects as well as important examples of decorative arts, furniture, textiles, books and items with fascinating stories behind them.\nSelected by the National Trust’s curators from more than 1.5 million objects in its collections, the featured highlights include an ancient-Egyptian obelisk; Cardinal Wolsey’s purse; the first English globe; one of the earliest surviving sofas; an incredible 18th-century dolls’ house; an elephant automaton; a tent made for a sultan; a dress made of beetle-wing cases; hand-written manuscripts by Beatrix Potter and Virginia Woolf; Rodin’s bust of George Bernard Shaw; rare, early colour photographs of the Sutton Hoo discovery; a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth and paintings by Holbein, Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Reynolds, Stubbs, Burne-Jones, Monet and Sargent.\nEach featured object is accompanied by an illuminating, easy-to-read caption, a timeline of key moments in the Trust’s history and a list of properties housing important collections items appear at the end.

125 Treasures from the Collections of the National Trust /anglais

Thames&Hudson

One of the most elusive figures in history, this book brings together six key portraits to investigate their authenticity. With compelling new evidence from historians, scientists, conservators and curators, Searching for Shakespeare reveals an up-to-date picture of the playwright in the context of his contemporaies and his material world. Essays are by Tarnya Cooper, Marcia Pointin, James Shapiro and Stanley Wells.

Themes

National Portrait Gallery

Guide to Tudor & Jacobean Portraits

National Portrait Gallery Publ

In an exciting new research project the National Portrait Gallery has worked with the University of Bristol to discover the identity of mystery sitters in the Collection. To highlight this research, the Gallery has commissioned some of Britain and Ireland's leading writers to explore the evidence and to create playful stories about the lives of these unknown Tudor and Stuart sitters. The imaginary biographies in this volume provide new ways of looking at portraits in which the subject is unknown. Seven contemporary authors with international reputations have responded imaginatively to what can be seen in the portrait, exploring details of costume and pose in intriguing ways. Together they have created an imaginative range of letters, diaries, mini-biographies and brief memoirs, in which they explore some of the reasons why these people might have had their portrait painted. Each writer brings the sitter vividly to life, using facial expressions and other clues from the paintings, and often developing, moving stories for their invented characters.

Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits 1540-1640 John Banville, Tracy Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope, Minette Walters

National Portrait Gallery Publications

Tarnya Cooper discusses key surviving works, including those of Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, Walter Ralegh, Elizabeth I and James I. She explains why portraiture thrived during this period and why, with the declining demand for religious paintings in Northern Europe, emigrant artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger came to England to seek a new market. With lively engaging text and a dynamic design, the guide is organised thematically: the themes include costume and portraiture, pictures with stories to tell, monarchy, family portraits and artists and techniques. A visual timeline is included to show at a glimpse the major developments in portraiture during this period. Tarnya Cooper also includes some surprisingly beautiful technical pictures from her latest research, making her expert knowledge accessible and fascinating. Aimed to have widespread appeal to readers of all ages, Antonia Fraser's foreword shows how portraiture illuminates history and brings it to life. As Britain moved away from being just a small part of Catholic Christendom and established itself as a Protestant country, with the monarch as the head of the Church, the individual became increasingly important. This guide shows not only how people chose to present themselves, but also introduces their fascinating lives and times.

A Guide to Tudor and Jacobean Portraits

The reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which spanned more than 40 years, was a time of economic stability, with outstanding successes in the fields of maritime exploration and defense, a huge expansion in trade, the creation of new industries, a rise in social mobility and the development of an extraordinary literary culture. Elizabeth I &amp; Her People explores the stories of those individuals whose achievements brought about these changes, as well as giving a fascinating glimpse into their way of life through accessories and artifacts. The book features portraits of the Queen and her courtiers, including explorers such as Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher, statesmen and soldiers, and portraits of the Queen's female courtiers. From the mid-sixteenth century, interest in portraiture broadened as members of a growing wealthy middle class sought to have their likenesses captured for posterity. The book includes lesser-known images of Elizabethan merchants, lawyers, goldsmiths, butchers, calligraphers, playwrights and artists.

Elizabeth I & Her People

Archer, Ian

Orlin, Lena

Who were the Tudor kings and queens and what did they really look like? Mention Henry VIII and the familiar image of the rotund, bearded fellow of Hans Holbein the Younger's portraits immediately springs to mind - reinforced, perhaps, by memories of a monochromatic Charles Laughton wielding a chicken leg in a fanciful biopic. With Elizabeth I it's frilly ruffs, white make-up and pink lips - in fact, just as she appears in a number of very well-known portraits held in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. But the familiarity of these representations has overshadowed the other images of the Tudor monarchs that were produced throughout their reigns. During the sixteenth century the market for portraits grew and so the monarchs' images multiplied as countless versions and copies of their likeness were produced to satisfy demand. Taken together, these images chart both the changing iconography of the ruler and the development of portrait painting in England. In considering the context in which these portraits were made, the motivations of the sitters and the artists who made them, the purposes to which they were put, and the physical transformations and interventions they have undergone in the intervening five centuries, the authors present a compelling and illuminating investigation into the portraiture of the Tudor monarchs.

The Real Tudors Kings and Queens Rediscovered /anglais

NATIONAL PORTRA

This book brings together 50 exquisite portrait drawings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including works by da Vinci, Dürer, Holbein, Bernini, Carracci, Clouet and Rembrandt. These works capture a moment of connection between artist and sitter: an encounter.

The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt

Bolland, Charlotte

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cooper, Tarnya. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cooper, Tarnya

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cooper, Tarnya. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Searching for Shakespeare

Citizen Portrait: Portrait Painting and the Urban Elite of Tudor and Jacobean England and Wales (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)

125 Treasures from the Collections of the National Trust /anglais

Searching for Shakespeare

Guide to Tudor & Jacobean Portraits

Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits 1540-1640 John Banville, Tracy Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope, Minette Walters

A Guide to Tudor and Jacobean Portraits

Elizabeth I & Her People

The Real Tudors Kings and Queens Rediscovered /anglais

The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt