portrait of Shakespeare from life?

[truepenny]

(found via matociquala)

Article in Time.

Stanley Wells is a respected Shakespearean scholar (as opposed to a crackpot of any of the multihued stripes of Shakespearean crackpot out there), so whether or not this is really Shakespeare, I believe that there are good reasons for investigating.

The portrait reminds me strongly of an Elizabethan other than Shakespeare, but I cannot for the life of me tell you who.

Comments

[hippoiathanatoi.livejournal.com]

Exciting! The fact that the painting seems to have been a popular subject for copying is very interesting although of course it might be because it's some other notable individual rather than Shakespeare.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Bacon? De Vere?

[usedtobeljs]

From friendsfriends:

John Donne?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, Donne looks like Charles II. :)

[poshlil.livejournal.com]

It reminds me very much of one of the images David Starkey used in Monarchy, but i couldn't even tell you which series, let alone which royal. :/

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

My vote is that it's an image of Richard Sackville -- much painted and his portrait much copied and distributed. In any case, that's the Elizabethan/Jacobean face this purported Shakespeare portrait echoes for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sackville,_3rd_Earl_of_Dorset
http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Sackville,Richard(3EDorset)02.JPG

[paulakate.livejournal.com]

I was about to post the same suggestion, though I am not sure it's him - but that's who it reminds me of.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Great minds...

[saltypepper.livejournal.com]

Nice shoes, Rick!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh god. I hadn't even noticed the pompoms from hell.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Amazing, aren't they? I suppose they turned any number of heads. (I think the prime target was King James, who was known to fancy a shapely calf and a well-shod foot.) It's hard to feel much sympathy for Sackville as a fashion victim.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, my sympathies are entirely with Anne Clifford. (If I ever teach "The Description of Cooke-ham" again, I am so bringing in Sackville's portrait.)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I share your fondness for Anne Clifford!

In case you aren't already using this sort of thing when you teach her, there are some powerful (and blessedly pithy!) excerpts of the Diary that you could use alongside, too. For instance:

August 1619:

The 24th. After Dinner came sir Thomas Penniston and his Lady,* Sir Maxmilian and Lady Dallison. The 25th they stay'd here all day, there being great Entertainment & much stir about them.
The 26th they all went away.
The 27th, my Lord rid about betimes in the Morning & came not in till night. This night the 2 Green Beds in my Chamber were removed.#
The 30th, My Lord sat much to have his Picture drawn by Vansomer, & one picture was drawn for me.

* [AC's note] All this Summer Lady Penniston was at the Wells near Tunbridge drinking the Waters. This coming hither of Lady Peniston's was much talked of abroad and my Lord was condemned for it. [editor's note: Lady Pennistone was for some time a mistress of Richard Sackville.]
# [AC's note] About this time my Lord intended to keep a more sparing House; put away Thomas Work and Gifford and took one in their place, which was Sir John Suckling's man.

("The Knole Diary, 1603-1619," The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford, ed. D. J. H. Clifford, p. 83)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Yep, he was quite the dandy -- and it will probably not surprise you that he spent too lavishly (on the clothes, but also on courtly entertainments, including gambling), shorting his wife and child on household expenditures and pressuring his wife to sell out her inheritance in order to pay off his debts. (She -- Anne Clifford -- didn't give in, by the way. And she outlived him, to boot!)