|
|
|
The Globe and Mail 11 May 2001
Is this
the face of genius?
STEPHANIE NOLEN
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."
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. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
