For years we have all known what Shakespeare looked like, because a copy of Martin Droeshout’s engraving of him appeared in just about every copy of the bard’s works — but that engraving was from seven years after Shakespeare’s death, when his First Folio was published.
Now a Shakespeare scholar has identified the original portrait on which the engraving was based:
The painting has languished for centuries outside Dublin at Newbridge House, home base of the Cobbe family, where until recently no one suspected it might be a portrait of the Bard. Three years ago, Alec Cobbe, who had inherited much of the collection in the 1980s and placed it in trust, found himself at an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London called “Searching for Shakespeare.” There he saw a painting from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., that had been accepted until the late 1930s as a portrait of Shakespeare from life. Looking at it, Cobbe felt certain the Folger painting was a copy of the one in his family’s collection. He asked Wells, an old friend, for his help in authenticating it.
The two men arranged to have the Cobbe painting subjected to a battery of scientific tests — tree-ring-dating to determine the age of the wood panel, X-ray examination at the Hamilton-Kerr Institute at Cambridge University and infrared reflectography. The tests produced convincing evidence that the panel dated from around 1610 and was the source for the Folger painting, among others. Wells is now sure of it. “I don’t think anyone who sees [the Cobbe painting] would doubt this is the original,” he says. “It’s a much livelier painting, a much more alert face, a more intelligent and sympathetic face.”It also matters that the Cobbe painting seems to have been copied more than once. (Wells believes the famous Droeshout engraving was made from one of these copies and not the Cobbe original.) In addition to the Folger, there appear to be three other versions, all from the 17th century. “It suggests that this is someone who was famous enough that there was a demand for copies,” says Wells. “We have a fascinating reference in a play from 1603 in which there is the character of a young man who was obviously a fan of Shakespeare. He quotes bits of Romeo and Juliet and is rather foolish. And he says the line: ‘Sweet master Shakespeare, I have his picture in my study at the court.’ That also shows that there was likely to be a demand for his portrait.”