PAINTING FIVE
MUTINE in a MATRON’S BONES
Mutine in a matron’s bones, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 x 7/8 in (76.20 x 101.60 x 2.222 cm), Click on image for lightbox view.
In the dressing room, each actor has a station where they apply their makeup and get dressed for the production. Each actor personalizes their mirror with cards, mementos or inspiration for their character. In this painting we see the actress playing Gertrude caught mid-moment while applying blush. She sees the designer approaching, bringing her a newly styled wig. The viewer’s vantage point is that of the designer in black approaching the actress.
This painting represents Act III, Scene IV - the closet scene in which Hamlet confronts Gertrude about Claudius’ guilt in his father’s murder and also in which he stabs Polonius, who is hiding behind a tapestry curtain, spying on the conversation. This specific moment of action also shares a biographical tie to de Vere. While living in the Cecil household, de Vere stabbed an undercook in the thigh during fencing practice, and the young servant died. As not to have de Vere found guilty of murder, Cecil convinced the jury that the young servant had killed himself by drunkenly running into de Vere’s sword, thus making the cause of death suicide and not murder.
The dressing room contains dressing spaces for the only two actresses in the play. Reflected in Gertrude’s mirror, the viewer sees Ophelia’s station, replete with her costume pieces, makeup, mementos and flowers, but she is absent from the scene, further reminding the viewer of the estrangement between de Vere and Ophelia’s real life counterpart, Anne Cecil. The viewer can also see, in Gertrude’s mirror, the feet of the actor playing Polonius poking out from beneath the small changing curtain separating the two sides of the room. The face of the designer appears in the mirror of Gertrude’s blush compact, but is obscured where it should be reflected in her mirror above by a postcard emblazoned with the Droeshout engraving from the First Folio and an inscription reading “Methinks I see these things with parted eye, when everything seems double”. So if I (as the director / designer in this painting) am the contemporary vessel bringing de Vere’s story forward through these paintings, my efforts too (and those of all Oxfordians) are still being obscured by the prevailing Stratford Man myth.
On Gertrude’s station we see many clues relating to her character, as well as its living inspiration in de Vere’s life - Elizabeth I. On the mirror are taped two portraits of the Queen, and inside her makeup box are portraits of Elizabeth (an odd portrait in which the “Virgin Queen” appears dressed in a maternity robe, replete with a sonnet ending with the phrase “all the fruite my love tree beares”), a youthful de Vere and Thomas Seymour, Elizabeth’s step mother’s husband, who, if the Prince Tudor theory that de Vere was indeed the first born child of Elizabeth, would be the likely father. These research photos are taped to the inside lid of her lockable makeup box, a reference to the secrecy that would have been required to keep this changeling birth shrouded. I’m personally undecided about this theory, but have included this reference to it, just as I have included references to other authorship candidates that have been floated. Even outside of the Prince Tudor theory, Elizabeth was a mother figure of sorts in de Vere’s life and this scene and painting reflect that dynamic.
Spread on the towel are makeup items: clown white makeup and powder, symbolizing the lead white emulsion that Elizabeth used to create her faux aura of purity and virginity, along with lipstick and lipliner bearing the color numbers 17 and 40 respectively. There are two regal costume rings, the red one signifying her marriage to Claudius, the other a green (or vert) oval cabochon stone set in a ring of diamond (a green O), symbolic of her motherhood (figurative or literal) of Hamlet / de Vere. On the left is a bottle of Rue extract (an abortificant) and behind her makeup box is a copy of the play I Hate Hamlet (perhaps a future project for this actress), both representing Gertrude’s feelings towards Hamlet in this scene. The mug on the right is an amended quote from Hamlet: “Frailty thy name AIN’T woman.”
Miniature portraits by Nicholas Hilliard of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton(left) and Unidentified man, likely Edward de Vere by Nicholas Hilliard (right)
In the dialogue of this scene, Hamlet points out a double portrait of Claudius and King Hamlet, two brothers. In the designer’s outstretched hand is a locket with two portraits - of de Vere and the Earl of Southhampton - another hint at one of the other possible facets of the Prince Tudor theory, or simply referring to their shared experience being pseudo-brothers as wards of the queen.
Other easter eggs relating to de Vere include the N-OX-zema and the Droeshout engraving inscription. There are seventeen lightbulbs visible to the viewer around Gertrude’s mirror, and seventeen lightbulbs reflected from around Ophelia’s mirror. There are 17 lights that are burning and 17 that are not, again symbolizing the outward and hidden identities of Oxford.