Chandos portrait

The Chandos portrait is an oil painted portrait thought to depict William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Painted between 1600 and 1610, it may have served as the basis for the engraved portrait of Shakespeare used in the First Folio in 1623. It is named after the 3rd Duke of Chandos, who was a former owner. The portrait was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London, on its foundation in 1856, and it was the first portrait to be acquired for its collection.

It has not been possible to determine with certainty which artist painted the portrait, or whether it actually depicts Shakespeare. The attribution and the identification are both conjectures. However, the National Portrait Gallery believes that it is "certainly fairly likely" that the portrait does depict the writer.

Authorship and provenance

The first known reference to the painting is in a note written in 1719 by George Vertue, who stated that it was painted by John Taylor, a respected member of the Painter-Stainers' Company, who may also have been the same John Taylor who acted with the Children of Paul's. Vertue refers to Taylor as an actor and painter and as Shakespeare's "intimate friend". Katherine Duncan-Jones argues that "John Taylor" could have been a misreading of what had originally been "Jo: Taylor"; she suggests that this may refer to the actor Joseph Taylor, who was a protégé of the older Shakespeare.

In 1719, in a note in the margin of a book, George Vertue wrote the name "Richard Burbridge" [sic], then crossed it out. It is thought that Vertue temporarily and mistakenly assigned the painting to Shakespeare's friend Richard Burbage (1567–1619), then crossed it out, and instead wrote that the painting was by "one Taylor".

Vertue also states that before the Duke of Chandos acquired it, the portrait was owned by Shakespeare's possible godson, William Davenant (1606–1668), He also states that it was left to Davenant in Taylor's will and that it was bought by Thomas Betterton from Davenant and then sold to the lawyer Robert Keck, a collector of Shakespeare memorabilia.

File:Title page William Shakespeare's First Folio 1623.jpg|Engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout, on the title page of the first publication of his works, the First Folio, shows distinct similarities when compared to the oil painting.

File:Soest portrait of Shakespeare.jpg|The "Soest Portrait" of Shakespeare, painted 1667

File:Chesterfield portrait.jpg|The "Chesterfield Portrait" of Shakespeare, painted 1679

</gallery>

Scholarly views

An image that is definitively identifiable as a depiction of the playwright is the engraving in the posthumously published First Folio of 1623. It was created by Martin Droeshout and was probably commissioned by Shakespeare's friends and family. It is considered likely that the Droeshout engraving is a reasonably accurate likeness of Shakespeare because of its acceptance by these close associates and because contemporaries such as Ben Jonson praised it at the time of the publication. Since the man in the Chandos portrait resembles the one in the Droeshout engraving, the similarity lends an indirect legitimacy to the oil painting. Further, the Chandos portrait was the inspiration for two posthumous portraits of Shakespeare, one by Gerard Soest and another, grander one, known as the "Chesterfield portrait" after a former owner of that painting. According to Ben Macintyre, "Some Victorians recoiled at the idea that the Chandos portrait represented Shakespeare. One critic, J. Hain Friswell, insisted 'one cannot readily imagine our essentially English Shakespeare to have been a dark, heavy man, with a foreign expression'." Friswell agreed with Steevens that the portrait had "a decidedly Jewish physiognomy" adding that it displayed "a somewhat lubricious mouth, red-edged eyes" and "wanton lips, with a coarse expression." According to Ernest Jones, the portrait convinced Sigmund Freud that Shakespeare was French: "He insisted that his countenance could not be that of an Anglo-Saxon but must be French, and he suggested that the name was a corruption of Jacques Pierre."

References

External links

Website Comparing the Three most likely Shakespeare Portraits

Portraits of Shakespeare