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Purchased by the Shakespeare Institute in November 1957. Formerly part of the Haigh Hall collection of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres. The painting, another version of a picture at Muncaster Castle, near Ravenglass, Cumberland, depicts a fool in a checked costume with various impedimenta of his trade, which are explained in a piece of doggerel on the left-hand side of the picture. The doggerel specifically mentions Haigh Hall and the surrounding countryside but gives no clue to the date of the portrait or to the name of the artist concerned – the jester was simply referred to as 'Tom Fool'. The nineteenth-century label attached to the picture describes it as 'Tom Skelton, fool to the Crawford and Balcarres Family'. Skelton probably sat for his portrait between 1659 and 1665.