We have seen Shakespeare's ingenuity at work bodging two of the visual arts—engraving (or woodcut) and painting—into the text of The Winter's Tale by means of ekphrastic dialogue. I now want to explore his incorporation of a third—sculpture—by examining the text to determine what it can tell us about the play's onstage presentation. I shall begin by asking what we know about the appearance of Hermione's “statue” when it is revealed in Act 5, Scene 3. Next, I will inquire into a related matter: is there any historical evidence to support Shakespeare's attribution of the supposed sculpture to Giulio Romano, beyond Vasari's report that Giulio's epitaph claimed that he made “sculpted and painted bodies breathe”? Finally, I shall propose a reader's ekphrasis of Hermione's statue, based on the evidence gathered. Let us address these three issues in the order of their appearance.

More than 400 years after the original production of the play, and with no contemporary eyewitness accounts save that of Simon Forman, who says nothing about the statue, we must glean what we can from the text's first printing. The Folio provides scenic facts concerning the statue's authorship, state of finish, substance, and posture, which can be gathered from dialogue that supplies oblique stage directions. Our first piece of evidence addresses its provenance and verisimilitude: it is “a Peece many yeeres in doing, and now newly perform’d, by that rare Italian Master, Julio Romano,” who “so neere Hermione, hath done Hermione, that they say one would speake to her, and stand in hope of answer” (5.2.93–5, 98–9). The Third Gentleman has identified the statue as the work of a sixteenth-century artist who—fictionally—is still living, but who actually died sixty-five years before The Winter's Tale was produced. He has labored over it for a very long time and just recently put the finishing touches to it. Among its other functions, the line serves to reinforce the early modern setting of a play whose historical context Shakespeare shifts in accordance with the thematic value he wishes to emphasize.