Experts to debate Sanders painting
Peter Fokes
today's edition:
Historians and scientists will explore whether the mischievous face in the
picture is Shakespeare's, STEPHANIE NOLEN writes
By STEPHANIE NOLEN
Saturday, December 22, 2001 -
Is it him?
About 200 experts from half a dozen fields will gather in Toronto next year
to weigh the evidence in favour of the Sanders portrait, which some say is
of William Shakespeare.
A symposium in November will bring together "everyone who has a stake" in
the question of the portrait's authenticity, said Alexandra Johnston,
director of the University of Toronto's Records of Early English Drama
project. REED is organizing the gathering in conjunction with the Art
Gallery of Ontario, which exhibited the picture last summer. The portrait,
which was shown in The Globe and Mail in May, could be the only image of
Shakespeare created while the English playwright was alive. It belongs to a
retired Ontario engineer and has been in his family for about 10
generations. It is said to have been painted by John Sanders, a bit player
in Shakespeare's company, who passed it down through the generations.
On the back of the portrait, a label identifies the sitter as "Shakspere . .
. age . . . 39 ys." The general style and tests of the paint, label and
woodhave dated the picture between 1597 and 1640. The date written in a
corner of the painting is 1603. Art, theatre and costume historians, along
with forensic scientists, genealogists and paleographers (experts in ancient
handwriting) will take part in the meeting.
"We will be talking about the nature of evidence, because at the end of the
day, unless you get in a time machine, you can never prove it is
Shakespeare," Ms. Johnston said, adding that news of the portrait created
considerable excitement in many parts of the academic world.
The symposium will include a lecture by University of Toronto Shakespearean
scholar Alexander Leggatt, who has given his talk the working title "What
Does It Matter?"
"If it is him, there is the question of the kind of image the portrait
creates in our mind and how this could potentially shape our response to the
plays," Mr. Leggatt explained. "And if isn't him, this is an interesting
chapter in the story of our response to Shakespeare. But it's much more fun
to assume it is him and explore the consequences."
If this is an image of Shakespeare, he said, the youth, playfulness and
mischief of the face suggest a new way of looking at the plays and sonnets.
"A lot of Shakespeare scholarship throughout the centuries has been very
solemn, but what I think what the portrait does is encourage us to see the
element of play" in the playwright and his works.
Concordia University historian Robert Tittler, an expert in civic
portraiture of the Elizabethan era (the best-known portraits are of people
presented at court, which Shakespeare never was) will join the debate. So
will costume historians, to offer opinions on the surprisingly elaborate
doublet the portrait sitter wears and whether it could be a theatrical
costume.
Organizers are also hoping for big news from William Ingram, a retired
professor of English literature at the University of Michigan and one of the
leading experts on stage players of the era.
Mr. Ingram is travelling to England this winter with the specific goal of
identifying the reputed painter of the portrait.
"If anyone can find John Sanders, it's Bill Ingram," Ms. Johnston said.
The owner of the painting has birth and death records for a John Sanders of
the right era, in the town of Worcester, from which his ancestors came, but
Mr. Ingram will look for evidence tying Sanders to Shakespeare.
Mr. Ingram told The Globe and Mail that he intends to search birth and death
records, wills, lawsuits, property deeds and parish records in London. If
the mystery painter had a son baptized, for example, during his years in the
city, a register will list "Richard, son of John Sanders, player." But only
half the parish registers from the era survive. The portrait needs a smoking
gun, he said, to resolve its mystery, although that is not his primary goal.
"It would be nice to know that it is Shakespeare, but my scholarly interest
is in the profession of stage playing," he said.
"I am interested in knowing who the stage players are and how they relate to
each other. I have 600 to 700 names in my database, but John Sanders is not
one of them. He has eluded not only me, but everyone else working in this
field."
To be William, or not to be William
About 200 experts from half a dozen fields will gather in Toronto next year
to weigh the evidence that William Shakespeare is indeed the subject in a
portrait painted by a John Sanders. The artwork has already undergone a
scientific authentication process that included analyzing inorganic material
(such as the pigments), organic material (the binding media used to make the
paint) and botanical elements (the wood it is painted on and the paper
label) of the painting.
General Artwork
X-radiography (like a medical X-ray) was used to look at the structure of
the painting, a process that points out double-paintings and changes not
visible to the naked eye. None were detected. Florescence photography (which
uses ultraviolet radiation instead of normal light) was used to look for
areas of overpainting. In faked or copied pictures, this shows elements
added later or changed. Nothing was found. Infrared reflectography was used
to examine the underdrawing, usually done in carbon-based material, to see
whether it differed too greatly from the finished piece. There were no signs
of later alteration.
Date
The stratigraphy of the paint was analyzed using microscopic cross-sections
of the material. If a layer of dust and varnish had appeared between the
paint used for the date and the rest of the painting, it would have been
proof that the date had been added later, but results showed it was painted
at the same time.
Paint
X-ray and infrared spectrometry are used to identify the chemical elements
in the paint to ensure they were consistent with the era in which the
portrait was purportedly created. X-ray diffraction was used on tiny paint
particles to observe their crystal structure and compare it to the
structures of other known materials. No temporally anomalous materials were
found.
Label
The paper label attached to the back of the portrait went through
radiocarbon analysis (carbon dating) which revealed it dates from between
1475 and 1640.
Wood
The two pieces of oak glued together to form the board on which the portrait
was painted were put through a dendrochronological analysis, where they were
dated using the patterns of annual growth rings in the timber. This test
concluded that the earliest possible date of the painting was 1597.
Peter Fokes