Shakespeare portrait - #1
Tom Reedy
and Mail
Is this the face of genius?
Today we reveal what is believed to be William Shakespeare
at 39 - the only existing portrait painted
while the playwright was alive
STEPHANIE NOLEN
Friday, May 11, 2001
He is mischievous, keen-eyed, almost flirtatious. Half twinkle, half smirk,
he looks out from his portrait with a tolerant, world-weary air. This is
Shakespeare. Perhaps you thought you knew him: bald pate, thin brows, stiff
white ruff. You thought wrong.
There are 450 images of the greatest writer in modern history, so many that
most people assume they know what Shakespeare looked like. All but three of
those pictures are, in the opinion of most experts, fakes (or someone else).
There was, in fact, a whole industry in turning dusty pictures of forgotten
nobles into "Shakespeare" portraits in the 1700s. Only the bust on William
Shakespeare's grave in Stratford and an engraving for the cover of his first
collection of plays -- both done after his death -- are agreed among most
authorities to be actual likenesses.
But a retired engineer in a mid-sized Ontario city has a picture, handed
down through 12 generations of his family, which may be the only portrait
painted in Shakespeare's lifetime.
The painting, which the owner hopes to auction through a major American
house, bears the date 1603 in its upper right-hand corner. Experts have said
it is from the right era and in the style of the time.
The only dispute that remains is whether the rag paper label, affixed to the
back, is right. It reads, in part, "Shakspere" -- as the playwright spelled
his own name -- "This Likeness taken 1603, Age at that time 39 ys."
The painting's owner, who does not wish to be identified out of fear for the
security of the painting and his family, is in the final stages of
authenticating its provenance. He has been told it could be worth thousands,
or millions, of dollars.
"And to think we had it hanging for years on the dining-room wall," chuckled
the man, who has spent most of his savings trying to have the painting
authenticated. "And when I was a kid, it was under my grandmother's bed."
Told of the portrait yesterday by The Globe and Mail, Shakespeare scholars
and art historians were cautious.
"If this absolutely is a portrait of Shakespeare, then it is very
significant," Catharine MacLeod, curator of 16th- and 17th-century portraits
at the National Portrait Gallery in London, said.
The painting is about 42 centimetres by 33 centimetres, in tempera (made of
pure pigment and egg yolk) on solid oak.
It is slightly worm-eaten at the top but otherwise well preserved, its
colours rich, its sheen bright. It shows a Shakespeare with fluffy red hair
and blue-green eyes, an appearance that matches descriptions of him in the
journals of his contemporaries Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon.
The painting is reputed to be by one John Sanders, born in Worcester,
England, and christened in March, 1575. The Canadian owner can trace his
genealogy back to Mr. Sanders, who appears on the list of players in
playbills of the era for various theatrical companies, including that of the
King's Players, the same troupe as William Shakespeare. He performed in
small roles, and sometimes painted backdrops.
If the inscription on the back of the painting is to be believed, Mr.
Sanders got Shakespeare to sit still for a day or two in 1603, or perhaps
painted him from memory, having seen him at the theatre each day.
He either labelled the back of the portrait then, leaving a space for the
date of death, or went back, 13 years later, when Shakespeare died, and
affixed the label then. (The full label reads: Shakspere, Born April 23
1564, Died April 23 1616, Aged 52, This Likeness taken 1603, Age at that
time 39 ys)
Shakespeare, at 39, was just hitting his stride. Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet
were already major successes. The great tragedies -- Othello, Lear,
MacBeth -- were still to come.
By the late 1590s, his name began to be printed on the front of his plays
(most Elizabethan playwrights, like all but the best screenwriters today,
languished in obscurity, their authorship unacknowledged).
Alexander Leggatt, professor of English at the University of Toronto, said
Shakespeare would certainly have been well known in theatrical circles by
1603, and that there would be "nothing inherently surprising" in a member of
his company who dabbled in painting choosing to do his portrait.
The painting has been kept in the Sanders family, handed down with care
through the generations, identified in wills, "To my eldest son, the
portrait reputed to be Shakespeare."
The current owner's grandfather brought it with him in a collection of
paintings when he came from England early in this century. It has been
exhibited only once, in the early 1960s. The owner's uncle, in whose custody
it was then, thought of selling it and had it shown briefly at a gallery.
But the painting, then unauthenticated, aroused little interest.
Before the owner set out, as a "retirement project," to try to authenticate
it, it had been evaluated only once, by A. M. Spielmann, a leading expert on
Shakespeare iconography, in London in 1909.
Mr. Spielmann, working without any scientific instruments, dismissed the
portrait as only about 70 years old and as having been altered after the
face was painted.
However, the Canadian owner had testing done over seven years, from 1993 to
2000, at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, a special operating
agency of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The federal government agency
does analytical work on art and artifacts for Canadian museums.
Ian Wainwright, manager of the analytical research laboratory at the CCI who
oversaw the study of this painting, presented its owner with a final report
last year.
In it, he said the "materials and techniques" are consistent with the date
of 1603. There is "no evidence that the date was not painted at the same
time as the rest of the painting," he wrote. He added there are "no
anachronisms" in the paint layers, "no anomalies such as double painting or
extensive addition of pictorial elements or extensive alteration of the
original paint surface," and it is "highly improbable that the painting is a
later forgery or copy."
In an interview, Mr. Wainwright confirmed his staff did the analysis. He
called the painting "exciting," but noted that it would "always remain a bit
of a mystery" whether the subject of the portrait was actually Shakespeare.
The institute's analysis of the rings in the oak board on which the portrait
is painted shows it is from as early as 1597, while the linen label was
carbon dated to the same era. Infrared and radiography showed the paint to
be from the period, and the whole painting and date to have been done at the
same time.
At present, the only authentic likenesses of Shakespeare are considered to
be a bust on his tomb in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford, cast
after his death, possibly from a death mask, and approved by his wife; and a
print done by the artist Martin Droeshout for the frontispiece of the First
Folio of his plays, which seems to have been taken from a sketch that has
never been found.
The engraving, too, seems to have been approved by Anne Hathaway; it was
published in 1623, after his death.
The only serious contender as a portrait of Shakespeare, before this, was a
painting called the Chandos. Its painter is unknown, as is its early
ownership.
It was once the property of the Duke of Chandos and was presented to the
National Portrait Gallery, where it hangs today, in 1856. Curators there
firmly defend its authenticity; many other scholars are skeptical, in part
because it shows a swarthy, "Italianate" Shakespeare who does not much
resemble the bust or the Droeshout.
Stanley Wells, a Shakespeare scholar who heads the Shakespeare Birthplace
Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, said it deserves serious consideration because
of its pedigree.
The news that there might be an authentic portrait of Shakespeare, painted
in life, provokes arched eyebrows from scholars and curators.
"People are always looking at pictures of men with beards and saying they're
Shakespeare," Ms. MacLeod said. "We have to take a very skeptical stance
because there is a whole industry in portraits of Shakespeare being
discovered."
Mr. Legatt noted that while Shakespeare's appearance is largely irrelevant
to his work, it matters very much on an emotional level. "The standard
images, the engraving and the sort of lumpy statue, these have a kind of
inexpressive quality that is frustrating," he said.
Mr. Wells agreed about the irrelevance of Shakespeare's appearance to
scholars, although he said this picture might prompt some re-examination of
the sonnets, which are considered Shakespeare's only autobiographical work,
by those who impute character to this image of the poet's face.
Mr. Wells said that the Canadian's picture would be of huge interest to his
institute, to the British National Gallery and portrait gallery, to the
British Museum and Washington's Folger Library (which has one of the world's
greatest collections of works by and about Shakespeare), to name just a few
of the institutions -- and of course to many private collectors.
The authentication
The Canadian Conservation Institute's Marie Claude Corbeil analyzed
pigments, the binding media in the paint, the wood on which it is painted,
and the paper label.
X-radiography and fluorescence searched for any elements added or changed
later -- none was found.
X-ray spectrometry identified chemical elements, to establish consistency
with the era.
Dr. R. P. Beukens at IsoTrace Radiocarbon Laboratory at the University of
Toronto found that the label dates from 1475 to 1640.
Dr. Peter Klein, of the University of Hamburg, studied growth rings in the
timber to date the work to 1597 at the earliest.
Tad Davis
to blame for the error noted below):
> At present, the only authentic likenesses of Shakespeare are considered to
> be a bust on his tomb in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford, cast
> after his death, possibly from a death mask, and approved by his wife; and a
> print done by the artist Martin Droeshout for the frontispiece of the First
> Folio of his plays, which seems to have been taken from a sketch that has
> never been found.
It was the TITLE PAGE, not the FRONTISPIECE. Can't anybody ever get that
right? Sheesh.
--
Tad Davis
dav...@voicenet.com
Greg Reynolds
Tad Davis wrote:
Double sheesh. Sara Shakespeare?