The Many Faces of Shakespeare: Is This One Really His? - New York Times

Is a death mask found in a ragpicker's shop in 1842 that of William Shakespeare? This coming Saturday's issue of the British weekly New Scientist says the mask, bearing the date 1616 and the high forehead, prominent nose and beard associated with Shakespeare, could be, Agence France-Presse reported. At the behest of Prof. Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, a scholar of English literature at the University of Mainz in Germany, specialists at the German Federal Bureau of Investigation compared two portraits widely believed to be of Shakespeare with a bust in the Garrick Club in London and concluded that all the faces belonged to the same person.