# Is this portrait of Shakespeare genuine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2001, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648 "2001-05-16T22:16:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2001, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/1 "2001-05-16T22:16:49Z")
There was an article in the May 11 edition of the Toronto [_Globe and Mail_](http://www.globeandmail.com) titled “Is this the face of a genius?” Click on the link and search for **Shakespeare portrait** The article (and related articles) will be available online for only a couple more days. The portrait itself can be seen [here](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/ap/20010511/wl/canada_shakespeare_painting_cpt111.html) If genuine, it would be the only known likeness of Shakespeare done from life. > [@](#): > > The painting … 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.” … > 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 tempura-on-oak portrait underwent several tests showing it was from approximately the right era. The tag was also dated to approximately the right era, and the writing was illegible under ordinary light. Real or fake, what say you? ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/2 "2001-05-17T00:37:05Z")
Gee, I don’t know. It’s not like I remember him. But, he was some older when we met. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/3 "2001-05-17T00:55:17Z")
It’s either him or someone else of the same name. Same old story. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/4 "2001-05-17T04:20:00Z")
He’s got pot-smoker eyes. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/5 "2001-05-17T09:06:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*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. > \*\* What descriptions of him in the journals of Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon? ---
**Author:** ![DRY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/6 "2001-05-18T04:33:57Z")
“The old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.” “Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.” –Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3, Scene ii [sub]Serious answer: I don’t know.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2001, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/7 "2001-05-18T05:28:26Z")
I’m sitting here with a copy of the Droeshout engraving trying to convince myself that it (which Hemings and Condell pronounced “a good likeness”) shows the same guy as this painting. Still debating with myself. The fact that this painting shows a man whose hairline is receding already, whose hair flares out over his ears, whose beard is sparse certainly matches the Droeshout. About the statement that it would be the only one taken from life, I certainly may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the bust above his tomb (or in the same church anyway) was taken from a death mask. Am I mistaken, or misremembering. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2001, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/8 "2001-05-18T05:45:39Z")
Just looked in my copy of the massive “The Reader’s Guide To Shakespeare” edited by Oscar Campbell and Edward Quinn (an encyclopedia of EVERYTHING Shakespeare, up to 1966 anyway), and discovered I was misremembering. The Memorial Bust was carved, probably at the behest of Shakespeare’s son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, and it is therefore considered (along with the Martin Droeshout engraving) a “true” likeness. There was a purported death mask, the “Kesselstadt death mask,” but its authenticity is severely questioned. Sir ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2001, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-portrait-of-shakespeare-genuine/65648/9 "2001-05-18T06:52:32Z")
No, it’s a fraud. The _Globe and Mail_ & its reporter Stephanie Nolen are riding this story for all it’s worth, of course. But perhaps if you dig around on the _Globe_ website you’ll find a letter written by my old 17th-c. English prof Hugh MacCallum pointing out that the description on the label uses a locution for which the _OED_ can supply no reference earlier than the mid-18th century to the early 19th. (The _OED_’s citations are not infallable, but when they’re off it’s by a matter of a few decades, not nearly two centuries: the discrepancy here seems to me conclusive proof of forgery.) A letter a day or two later from another correspondent notes that the portrait is suspiciously off-centre, as if an undesirable detail of the original painting has been cropped. – I’m sure it’s a genuine 16th-c. portrait, & that the label is also 16th-c.–it hardly takes much ingenuity to snip a blank page out of a 16th-c. book, write on it & affix it. & carbondating proves nothing about the accuracy of the inscription. The _Globe_ has of course neither responded to the letters in question, beyond printing them, nor has it stopped running hyped stories about the portrait. But what can you expect–after all there are obvious enough blunders in the various articles that suggest Nolen hardly knows much (e.g. the reference to Christopher Marlowe’s diary, a document that to my knowledge is nonexistent). I should point out (not that I’m defending the attribution of this portrait) that even if there’s zero resemblance between this portrait & that on the _First Folio_ & Shakespeare’s tomb, that’s not necessarily disproof of the identification: one hardly holds portraits to the same standards as photographs, & in fact portraits of the same person can be widely at variance.