John Webster, Tussaud Laureate: The Waxworks in The Duchess of Malfi

Abstract

Critics have speculated that the waxworks scene in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi may have been inspired by Prince Henry's funeral effigy. Expanding on this contextualization, this essay demonstrates the existence of a vibrant culture of effigeal exhibition in early modern England. Archival records reveal the mobility and instability of effigies, qualities that characterize their construction and display. The mobility and instability implicit in the material practices involving effigies are echoed in the motifs of portraiture and replication in Webster's play, where the effigy looms as a key emblem for the contradictions inherent in aristocratic portraiture and subjectivity.

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