An actor noted for his Shakespearian roles, in a Shakespearian role. Ira Aldridge really is a fascinating person, by the way - long before race-blind casting was even a phrase, he, as an African-American actor in the early 1800s, managed to overcome prejudice to become one of the leading Shakespearian performers of his day, doing not just Othello and Aaron, but Hamlet, Romeo, Richard III, and many other leading roles. Have a read of Ira Aldridge sometime. -- Adam Cuerden (talk)
Comment In the reason text and the article, I wonder if they want to say that he was the first black leading Shakespeare performer, and replaced it for political correctness reasons with African American - thereby in fact narrowing the message very much, because it leaves the possibilty that couloured Africans or South Asians or even South Americans had similar positions before. --Ikar.us (talk) 21:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not so easy. We have a photograph of Ira Aldridge ; nevertheless this photo is somewhat smaller than the nominated picture, by its size, quality and also subject (The Padlock by Charles Dibdin vs. Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare). Then I was wondering if the engraving was faithful, but I find a strong resemblance with File:Taras Shevchenko TS20.jpg (unlike File:Ira Aldridge.jpg) => OK to me, best valuable image for the scope IMO. --Myrabella (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think The Padlock image can be a photograph: quite simply, it's from before commercial photography. The earliest, Daguerrotypes came out in 1836, this is supposedly from the 1820s or 1830s. If that date range has any validity, then the authors of it must have known it was not a photo. It's probably a really bad reproduction of an engraving - scale down an engraving enough, blur it a little, and desaturate, and, if the original is of good quality, it can be mistaken for a photo. Example: . This one was based on a photo, and engravers were quite good - I'd suspect it's a good reproduction. For comparison, a real daugerrotype from the period looked like this: Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment and Question You are right, and I am ashamed because I am interested in Early Photography (PS: Daguerre's (and Niépce's) invention was revealed in 1839). I didn't pay attention to the date of the Padlock image, being leaded by the date of the first nominee. By the way, circa 1852 is the date of the nominated engraving, but is it the date of the performance too? --Myrabella (talk) 06:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be surprised if it wasn't fairly near the same date. Logic: Daguerrotypes, after all, were one-offs; you didn't ever get more than one of them without photographing the photograph. This was made for some purpose; the only ones I can think of are A. Advertising and/or news B. Souvenir, C. Book on Shakespeare or actors. D. Publication of Titus Andronicus. A and B would have to be contemporary; For C and D, it would be possible for it not to be contemporary - but only if they knew that a single Daguerreotype made years earlier existed, and sought it out. That seems unlikely, so I'd say this was published fairly near the performance. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment All of this is very interesting, thank you for making me discover this story. I agree Ira Aldridge is a fascinating person. --Jebulon (talk) 09:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do—look at the features of the face compared with the other views. I'd tend to trust more a picture based on a daguerreotype, like the nominated one. So I'd suggest to close this review, but of course feel free to set up a MVR if you prefer. --Myrabella (talk) 21:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not that good a judge in comparing the real life appearance of people depicted on 75 year old daguerreotypes, paintings, etches or other creative means of the epoch. I'll leave that to the experts. So if you are convinced, then close. Lycaon (talk) 09:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
