Apocryphal Portrait

Michael J. Deas wrote a delightful book titled The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe. The title fully describes the book's subject. One chapter is titled "Apocryphal Portraits." Some of the images in this chapter are clearly based on Poe's features, some are questionable and some obviously are not of him, such as a photograph of a man who bears only the slightest resemblance to Poe, but enough so that, in the 1960s, some who wanted to see the poet in it seriously considered it an authentic image. The fact that the man's style of clothes were from the 1860s (Poe died in 1849) and the photographic process used wasn't invented until 1851 were overlooked. So, inspired by the story of that photograph, here is my poor attempt at an ersatz Poe portrait minus his famous mustache which, after all, he only sported near the end of his life. It's loosely based on an 1843 woodcut and two watercolors, one by A.C. Smith and the other (which might not be of Poe at all) by John A. McDougall. This was just a fun piece. It's not Poe, which is painfully obvious, but I hope it bears enough similarities that an imaginary someone who longs for another image of the poet would willfully overlook the glaring discrepancies. The image is a hoax, and Poe loved hoaxes. Thus, although I sincerely doubt Poe would approve of the undeniably ugly image itself, I hope he would approve of the practical joke behind it.