Comparing the facial reconstruction with portraits

I just posted to the photos area - Photo Album Conference - 2 "screen
grabs" from the video of Caroline Wilkinson's talk comparing the
reconstructed skull model with the portraits from the National Portrait
Gallery & from Windsor.

A J

--- In , A J Hibbard <ajhibbard@...> wrote:
>
> I just posted to the photos area - Photo Album Conference - 2 "screen grabs" from the video of Caroline Wilkinson's talk comparing the reconstructed skull model with the portraits from the National Portrait Gallery & from Windsor.

Carol responds:

Thanks. The one I'm looking for is the NPG portrait superimposed on the facial restoration (or vice versa)--no skull involved, and not the SoA portrait, which, though earlier, looks less like the reconstruction.

Carol

Could it be this one that you were looking for? It was discussed on the forum a few weeks ago.

http://www.tigerlight430.co.uk/

--- In , "justcarol67" <justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In , A J Hibbard <ajhibbard@> wrote:
> >
> > I just posted to the photos area - Photo Album Conference - 2 "screen grabs" from the video of Caroline Wilkinson's talk comparing the reconstructed skull model with the portraits from the National Portrait Gallery & from Windsor.
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Thanks. The one I'm looking for is the NPG portrait superimposed on the facial restoration (or vice versa)--no skull involved, and not the SoA portrait, which, though earlier, looks less like the reconstruction.
>
> Carol
>

--- In , "Ms Jones" <mhairigibbons2006@...> wrote:
>
> Could it be this one that you were looking for? It was discussed on the forum a few weeks ago.
>
> http://www.tigerlight430.co.uk/
>
Carol responds:

Thanks, but the one I'm looking for has one face superimposed on the other, not side by side. Still, though, just having them side by side does show the similarity, which is think is stronger than that between the reconstruction and the SoA portrait, much less the Royal Collection portrait. So I disagree with Geoffrey Wheeler that the NPG portrait was based on the Royal Collection one. I agree with Claire that they appear to be unrelated copies of the same original. I can't see an artist in the Tudor era unuglifying the official (but delierately distorted) portrait of Richard to make it look more like the real king. Pardon the neologism, but I didn't know how else to say it.

Carol

Carol

--- In , "justcarol67" <justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In , "Ms Jones" <mhairigibbons2006@> wrote:
> >
> > Could it be this one that you were looking for? It was discussed on the forum a few weeks ago.
> >
> > http://www.tigerlight430.co.uk/
> >
> Carol responds:
>
> Thanks, but the one I'm looking for has one face superimposed on the other, not side by side. Still, though, just having them side by side does show the similarity, which is think is stronger than that between the reconstruction and the SoA portrait, much less the Royal Collection portrait. So I disagree with Geoffrey Wheeler that the NPG portrait was based on the Royal Collection one. I agree with Claire that they appear to be unrelated copies of the same original. I can't see an artist in the Tudor era unuglifying the official (but delierately distorted) portrait of Richard to make it look more like the real king. Pardon the neologism, but I didn't know how else to say it.
>
> Carol
>
> Carol
>

Marie responds:
It was either the NPG or the Royal Collection portrait that the skull fitted - Caroline Wilkinson seemed a bit unsure which it was. What she did say is that the skull did not fit nearly so well into the Antiquaries portrait despite the fact that it is the earliest one we have. So it does look as though the Royal Collection/NPG was also copied directly from the lost original, and that the artist made a better job of it.

> Marie responds:
> It was either the NPG or the Royal Collection portrait that the skull fitted - Caroline Wilkinson seemed a bit unsure which it was. What she did say is that the skull did not fit nearly so well into the Antiquaries portrait despite the fact that it is the earliest one we have. So it does look as though the Royal Collection/NPG was also copied directly from the lost original, and that the artist made a better job of it.
>
Carol responds:

They used the NPG portrait, not the one in the Royal Collection, which appears in the documentary only in the Pamela Tudor-Craig segment where she discusses some (not all) of the alterations and their effect in making Richard look sinister.

I agree with you that the NPG portrait is a better fit than the SoA portrait and must have been copied from the lost original, but I disagree that the Royal Collection portrait with its aged face, enlarged nose, and sinister expression is also a good fit.

What I'm saying is that, whatever the Royal Collection looked like before the alterations, the altered version does not look like the real Richard III and cannot have been the basis for the NPG portrait, which does closely resemble him. Unless you count the painting out of the hump in the Broken Sword portrait, the portraiture of Richard III never goes backwards from an altered or distorted portrait to a more realistic one. Rather than being a copy of the Royal Collection portrait as Geoffrey Wheeler thinks, the NPG portrait must, following that reasoning, be a separate copy of the lost original, more faithful than the SoA portrait, also a separate copy, in that it retains the original dress.

For the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the two portraits (I'm ignoring the SoA one here):

National Portrait Gallery: http://www.enjoyrugby.co.uk/enjoyrugby/images/King_Richard_III_1_.jpg

Royal Collection (deliberately altered): http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/col/403436_255367_ORI_0_0.jpg

I would be very surprised if the first is a copy of the second--which was *not* consulted in the reconstruction, thank heaven. (Even the NPG portrait was consulted only for hair and eye color, skin tone, and clothing.)

Carol

Carol

--- In , "justcarol67" <justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> > Marie responds:
> > It was either the NPG or the Royal Collection portrait that the skull fitted - Caroline Wilkinson seemed a bit unsure which it was. What she did say is that the skull did not fit nearly so well into the Antiquaries portrait despite the fact that it is the earliest one we have. So it does look as though the Royal Collection/NPG was also copied directly from the lost original, and that the artist made a better job of it.
> >
> Carol responds:
>
> They used the NPG portrait, not the one in the Royal Collection, which appears in the documentary only in the Pamela Tudor-Craig segment where she discusses some (not all) of the alterations and their effect in making Richard look sinister.
>
> I agree with you that the NPG portrait is a better fit than the SoA portrait and must have been copied from the lost original, but I disagree that the Royal Collection portrait with its aged face, enlarged nose, and sinister expression is also a good fit.

Marie responds:

Hi Carol,

I didn't say the Royal Collection portrait was also a good fit - at all. I said that it was EITHER that one or the NPG portrait that CW had found to be a near-perfect fit. I was at Leicester and it all passed so quickly, and I haven't had a chance to look over the video, which of course would enable me to identify the portrait for myself; what I do recall is that CW had checked the skull against just two portraits, one of which was the much-vaunted Antiquaries one.

There seems to be a feeling that the Royal Collection portrait is THE portrait that has been tampered with, and therefore must actually look evil. More recently the cleaning of the Antiquaries portrait has revealed that this has also suffered from alterations. I personally can't see the terrible problem with the Windsor (sorry, Royal Collection, as it seems we must now call it) portrait - I look at it and I still recognise Richard. But I loathed the mean-faced old bonebag that I saw gazing out of the Society of Antiquaries portrait, whilst other people loved it; it's slightly less offensive now it has been cleaned and the features restored to their original dimensions, but I still don't see Richard III in it. It's all very subjective, of course, (and how did I know what RII looked like? I hear you ask) but I do sometimes wonder if we haven't psyched ourselves up into hating the Windsor portrait because for so many years it was the only one we knew to have been altered. (And maybe psyched ourselves into liking the Antiquaries one because it is the earliest extant and, indeed, for many years was thought might possibly be the original.)

Marie



>
> What I'm saying is that, whatever the Royal Collection looked like before the alterations, the altered version does not look like the real Richard III and cannot have been the basis for the NPG portrait, which does closely resemble him. Unless you count the painting out of the hump in the Broken Sword portrait, the portraiture of Richard III never goes backwards from an altered or distorted portrait to a more realistic one. Rather than being a copy of the Royal Collection portrait as Geoffrey Wheeler thinks, the NPG portrait must, following that reasoning, be a separate copy of the lost original, more faithful than the SoA portrait, also a separate copy, in that it retains the original dress.
>
> For the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the two portraits (I'm ignoring the SoA one here):
>
> National Portrait Gallery: http://www.enjoyrugby.co.uk/enjoyrugby/images/King_Richard_III_1_.jpg
>
> Royal Collection (deliberately altered): http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/col/403436_255367_ORI_0_0.jpg
>
> I would be very surprised if the first is a copy of the second--which was *not* consulted in the reconstruction, thank heaven. (Even the NPG portrait was consulted only for hair and eye color, skin tone, and clothing.)
>
> Carol
>
> Carol
>

From: mariewalsh2003
To:
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 3:05 AM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits

> What she did say is that the skull did not fit nearly so well into the
> Antiquaries portrait despite the fact that it is the earliest one we have.

Not as well - I don't know about "not nearly as well". A few months ago I
uploaded an image showing the skull superimposed on the SoA portrait and the
fit is surprisingly good. Not *quite* as good as the NPG one, but even the
NPG one doesn't fit absolutely: if you look at the sequence which shows the
portrait and the skull and then the two superimposed they seem to have
shaved a bit off the skull's chin to make it fit.

From: justcarol67
To:
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 5:20 PM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits


> So I disagree with Geoffrey Wheeler that the NPG portrait was based on the
> Royal Collection one. I agree with Claire that they appear to be unrelated
> copies of the same original. I can't see an artist in the Tudor era
> unuglifying the official (but delierately distorted) portrait of Richard
> to make it look more like the real king. Pardon the neologism, but I
> didn't know how else to say it.

It's not too bad a neologism - I'm sure I've come across the word "uglified"
before, so "unuglified" or maybe "deuglified" is a logical extension.

There's also the point that in the RC one the fact that his thumb is tucked
in behind the edge of his jacket (doublet?) is extremely clear. Imo it's
unlikely that anyone copying from the RC one would make the mistake of
giving him that weird, pointed not-tucked-in thumb we see in the NPG one, so
that implies a mutual original in which his thumb was tucked into his
jacket, but that fact wasn't as clear as in RC.

Concerning whether his little finger in the NPG one is painted to look like
a stump or not, btw, somebody said that if you magnified it you could see
that it wasn't. I suppose they meant that if you magnify it you can see
that there's a little dark line running parallel to the edge of his ring,
and which could be interpreted as the end of a fingernail - albeit one drawn
very differently from his other nails.

However, if you magnify it hugely you can see that that little line is
scalloped. It actually appears to be part of the decorative edge of his
ring: in very high magnification you can see that the artist/copyist appears
to have used the exact same colour - and probably the exact same blob of
paint - to do some of the shading on the ring as he(?) has to do the medium
flesh-tone of the finger, so the ring and the finger blend together a bit.

So rightly or wrongly the copyist who did the NPG one certainly seems to
have thought that that finger was short because it was a stump, and to have
painted it with no nail on. We cannot be sure, of course, whether that
finger had a nail or not in the original, since RC is an independent copy
and it shows a nail.

From: justcarol67
To:
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits


> Rather than being a copy of the Royal Collection portrait as Geoffrey
> Wheeler thinks, the NPG portrait must, following that reasoning, be a
> separate copy of the lost original, more faithful than the SoA portrait,
> also a separate copy, in that it retains the original dress.

Well - do we know when the RC one was uglified? I suppose the NPG one could
have been copied from the RC one before the RC one was altered.

But then you also have to consider what I said before - that the position of
his thumb behind the edge of his jacket is very clear in the RC one, so it's
unlikely that a copy made from it would misunderstand the position and shape
of his thumb as the NPG one has done.

From: mariewalsh2003
To:
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 9:35 PM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits


> But I loathed the mean-faced old bonebag that I saw gazing out of the
> Society of Antiquaries portrait, whilst other people loved it; it's
> slightly less offensive now it has been cleaned and the features restored
> to their original dimensions, but I still don't see Richard III in it.

Huh - I always loved that one, but imo it looks a lot worse since it was
cleaned, and I suspect it may have been over-cleaned. Before it was cleaned
it had a faint, amused smile which has now been removed, leaving him with a
sour look which wasn't there before.

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
>
Marie wrote:
> Hi Carol,
>
> I didn't say the Royal Collection portrait was also a good fit - at all. I said that it was EITHER that one or the NPG portrait that CW had found to be a near-perfect fit. I was at Leicester and it all passed so quickly, and I haven't had a chance to look over the video, which of course would enable me to identify the portrait for myself; what I do recall is that CW had checked the skull against just two portraits, one of which was the much-vaunted Antiquaries one.
>
> There seems to be a feeling that the Royal Collection portrait is THE portrait that has been tampered with, and therefore must actually look evil. More recently the cleaning of the Antiquaries portrait has revealed that this has also suffered from alterations. I personally can't see the terrible problem with the Windsor (sorry, Royal Collection, as it seems we must now call it) portrait - I look at it and I still recognise Richard. But I loathed the mean-faced old bonebag that I saw gazing out of the Society of Antiquaries portrait, whilst other people loved it; it's slightly less offensive now it has been cleaned and the features restored to their original dimensions, but I still don't see Richard III in it. It's all very subjective, of course, (and how did I know what RII looked like? I hear you ask) but I do sometimes wonder if we haven't psyched ourselves up into hating the Windsor portrait because for so many years it was the only one we knew to have been altered. (And maybe psyched ourselves into liking the Antiquaries one because it is the earliest extant and, indeed, for many years was thought might possibly be the original.)

Carol responds:

Hi, Marie. As I said, the reconstructors definitely used the NPG portrait, not the Royal Collection (Windsor) one, but only after they had established the muscle structure, etc. Photos of the NPG portrait side by side with the reconstruction or superimposed on the skull show it to be a near-perfect fit, the SoA portrait less so. No one that I know of has attempted a match with the Royal Collection portrait, either because it's less well known or because it's known to be altered.

I agree with you in dislikeing the SoA portrait (though "mean-faced old bonebag" goes a little beyond my reaction--I just hated that square shoulder left shoulder, the ugly outfit, and the lack of skill in painting his features. It lacks the intelligent, thoughtful expression of the NPG portrait (which has endeared it to so many people). To me, the "mean-faced old bonebag" is the altered Royal Collection (Windsor) portrait, which ages Richard to at least fifty (shall we thank Master More for that?), enlarges his nice nose and makes it crooked, narrows his eyes, and gived him a frown and frown-lines to match. Just ugh, ugh, ugh. To me, it's not Richard at all, not even Richard as he might have been in later life if he had survived. Those specified alterations had a purpose, after all--to make him look the part of the wicked tyrant and usurper mercifully overthrown at Bosworth by the will of God as narrated by the official historian, Vergil--"subtle but significant slander," as a Telegraph article calls it

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9809671/Richard-III-Visions-of-a-villain.html

dictated by Henry VIII, for whom the view of Richard as a monster had to be true. (I don't suppose his mama dared tell him that his uncles might still be alive; in any case, Richard had "usurped" the throne, "treasonously" fought Henry's father, and illegitimized his mother, so it was as much in Henry VIII's interest as in Henry VII's to continue the Tudor tradition--especially since he must have learned at some point, possibly long after the executions of Perkin Warbeck and Edward of Warwick when he was eight and a half, just how fragile his father's claim was.

Anyway, to me, the Royal Collection portrait epitomizes Tudor propaganda in the form of art as Vergil--or better, Hall--epitomizes it in written form. The sooner that portrait is replaced with a more faithful one, the better in my view.

I agree that our view of these portraits is *mostly* subjective, but I don't think it's the knowledge that the RC portrait was altered that makes some of us hate it. We would hate it just as much if it had been painted that way in the first place, a distorted copy of the lost original. It isn't Shakespeare's monster, of course, since the evil hunchback had yet to be created, but it's a fair depiction of Vergil's mean-faced, lip-chewing tyrant, and every time it's placed on a book cover or illustrates a magazine article, it reinforces the Tudor myth--the Richard that Henry VIII (and no doubt his late, unlamented father) wanted the world to believe in. I am relieved in the extreme that the facial reconstruction bears no resemblance to it.

Carol

"Claire M Jordan" wrote:

> Well - do we know when the RC one was uglified? [snip]

Carol responds:

Since it formed part of Henry VIII's royal collection, he may have sent it back to the artist immediately for "corrections," just as he would have returned an unsatisfactory portrait of himself. I've read that idea somewhere but can't recall where.

Whoever made the presumably later NPG copy of the original (which clearly was not lost at that point) clearly was under no such restrictions. (It would be amusing, at least to me, if the same artist made both portraits, one for Henry and another, more like the original, for himself. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know.

Carol

Marie wrote:
> > But I loathed the mean-faced old bonebag that I saw gazing out of the Society of Antiquaries portrait, whilst other people loved it; it's slightly less offensive now it has been cleaned and the features restored to their original dimensions, but I still don't see Richard III in it.

Claire responded:
> Huh - I always loved that one, but imo it looks a lot worse since it was cleaned, and I suspect it may have been over-cleaned. Before it was cleaned it had a faint, amused smile which has now been removed, leaving him with a sour look which wasn't there before.
>
Carol comments:

Funny, I think it looks slightly less bad now that it's been cleaned. At least, Richard no longer looks like he has jaundice! I think the new expression is somewhat softer. The lips are too compressed on the old version. But give me the NPG portrait any day over either one of them.

Carol, who will always think "mean-faced old bonebag" whenever she sees either version of the SoA portrait from now on!

From: justcarol67
To:
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits


> Whoever made the presumably later NPG copy of the original (which clearly
> was not lost at that point) clearly was under no such restrictions. (It
> would be amusing, at least to me, if the same artist made both portraits,
> one for Henry and another, more like the original, for himself.
> Unfortunately, we'll probably never know.

Like keeping two sets of accounts - the cooked one and the real one. I
wonder if Henry knew that his mother had been very fond of great uncle
Richard...?

If the age of the wood will allow, it would be interesting if they were made
at the same time - an official, ugly one for Henry VII, and a handsome
pin-up for his wife....

From: justcarol67
To:
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 1:54 AM
Subject: Re: Comparing the facial reconstruction
with portraits


> Funny, I think it looks slightly less bad now that it's been cleaned. At
> least, Richard no longer looks like he has jaundice!

Well, but that was just the yellowing varnish. Years ago I did an enhanced
version, using the pre-cleaned portrait but correcting for the yellow and
the fading as far as I could.

> I think the new expression is somewhat softer. The lips are too compressed
> on the old version.

Yes, but they're also slightly quirked up at the corners. It looks to me a
bit like what the Queen calls her Miss Piggy face - the expression she pulls
when she's trying very hard not to laugh.

Claire: Like keeping two sets of accounts - the cooked one and the real one. I
wonder if Henry knew that his mother had been very fond of great uncle
Richard...?
If the age of the wood will allow, it would be interesting if they were made
at the same time - an official, ugly one for Henry VII, and a handsome
pin-up for his wife....

Sandra: She might have kept the pin-up under the mattress, so that when Henry came a-visiting, it certainly was not of England she thought... (Sorry, another unworthy comment from Gloucester on a fine Sunday morning. No offence intended, just an irresistible scenario!)

--- In , "SandraMachin" <sandramachin@...> wrote:
>
> Claire: Like keeping two sets of accounts - the cooked one and the real one. I
> wonder if Henry knew that his mother had been very fond of great uncle
> Richard...?
> If the age of the wood will allow, it would be interesting if they were made
> at the same time - an official, ugly one for Henry VII, and a handsome
> pin-up for his wife....
>
> Sandra: She might have kept the pin-up under the mattress, so that when Henry came a-visiting, it certainly was not of England she thought... (Sorry, another unworthy comment from Gloucester on a fine Sunday morning. No offence intended, just an irresistible scenario!)
>
>
>
>
>