Shakespeare - Item #108

  16 Inches High This piece is a reduction of the original. In 1743 after receiving the bequest by Dr. Claudius Gilbert, the Vice-Provost, Trinity College in Dublin began the project of lining the Long Room of the library with busts of exemplary men in history. The College began by commissioning Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) to create 14 busts, one of which would be a sculpture of William Shakespeare. Scheemakers also created, with designer William Kent, the memorial to Shakespeare in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. This portrait of Shakespeare was widely utilized by other artists for their portraits of the playwright. John Cheere (1709-1787), for example, was commissioned to create a reproduction of the memorial, and one copy was placed at Stratford Town Hall. Cheere was a British sculptor whose brother was the well-known sculptor Sir Henry Cheere. Our bust is likely another sculptor's reproduction of a bust attributed to John Cheere based on the slight differences in the facial d