A Portrait of a Moor

Summary

Recently, the Shakespeare Institute acquired a portrait of the Moorish ambassador to Elizabeth in 1600—a portrait which is of considerable interest to students of history, of art and of the theatre (Plate ). For the historian it gives character to an episode, nowhere fully recorded, in the diplomatic relations between England and Barbary. It forms, too, a handsome and out-of-the-common addition to the gallery of Tudor portraits. For those concerned with the theatre its interest is twofold. First, although it lacks the direct relevance to stage-history attaching to Peacham’s sketch of Aaron, it may well assist a producer of The Merchant of Venice when he comes to the stage-direction, “Enter Morochus, a tawny Moore all in white”. The second point of theatrical interest is at once more speculative and much more significant. The picture presents “ocular proof” of what the Elizabethans saw as a Moor of rank, one whose presence with his companions in London a year or so before the usually agreed date of Othello caused much contemporary comment. Idle speculation, of course, must be curbed; but at least we are entitled to wonder whether an audience alert for the topical would not look for a true Barbarian on their stage. This ambassador from Mauretania, we have to remember, was Othello’s countryman. Iago refers to his master as a “Barbary horse” and elsewhere uses the term “barbarian”; after the dismissal from Cyprus, he tells Roderigo that Othello is going to Mauretania, a lie designed to imply the general’s final disgrace—his loss of high office among Christians and his ignominious return to his own people.