History is littered with characters without a portrait, or with such a dubious reproduction of their image that it has not served to fix an accurate memory.
The head of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's ill-fated second wife, has been filmed over and over again in novels, films and series, despite the fact that an anonymous 16th-century oil painting is the only clue to that woman "with a long neck, a wide mouth and black and beautiful eyes”, as defined by the ambassador of Venice in the court of the Tudors.
The biggest mystery, however, belongs to William Shakespeare.
That the person responsible for the "invention of the human", according to the words of his greatest admirer, the American literary critic Harold Bloom, barely has two representations of his physical appearance -a bust in the funerary monument of his hometown, Stratford-upon- Avon, and the author's engraving on the
First Folio
, which compiled his works, in 1623, has unleashed a detective task for decades and several advertisements that have turned out to be fraudulent.
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William Shakespeare, an enigmatic face
That is why the new portrait of the bard exhibited these days at the Grosvenor House hotel in London has raised as much expectation as misgivings.
His owner wants to remain anonymous.
He asks for 11.6 million euros for the work, and avoids the auction.
He wants a direct sale.
Against a dark background, a slim man, receding bald, light-eyed, with a trimmed red beard, wearing a shirt and doublet, gazes inquisitively ahead.
In the upper left corner of the oil painting reads 1608, the year in which the playwright was at his professional peak.
On the right, the initials AE and the number 44. The age he would have been then according to the baptismal certificate.
Eight years before his death.
The portrait is the work of Robert Peake
the Elder
, James I's chamber painter, to whom the Office of Revels
(
Something like
the Ministry of Leisure,
responsible for the theatrical and musical performances at the Jacobin court) carried out numerous commissions.
His stylized initials appeared in the upper right corner of the painting as the frame containing it was removed.
Peake's studio was in the London borough of Clerkenwell, where many of the works of the most famous playwright of all time were staged.
There is no definitive proof of the authenticity of the painting.
The name Shakespeare, which appears at the bottom of the frame, does not prove anything, because that frame was incorporated into the play a century or two later.
There is only an accumulation of signs, coincidences and indications that force, however, to pay attention to the challenge.
Portrait of Shakespeare in one of the extant copies of the 'First Folio', auctioned by Christie's in 2020. HENRY NICHOLLS (Reuters)
“This is a monogrammed and dated work, by a reputable portrait artist, who also had direct connections to the artist responsible for the
First Folio
image ,” says Duncan Phillips, the gallery owner and art expert who recently presented the work to the public, and who has become its greatest promoter and defender.
The
First Folio
It is the first compilation, published in 1623, of Shakespeare's 36 plays.
The author's engraving, something very common in publications of the time, is the work of a certain Martin Droeshout.
Although there is no direct information - part of the growing mystery - experts believe that the portrait did not arise from the observation of the original model, but was probably a copy of an existing painting.
Robert Peake's son, William, had a recording shop and knew Droeshout.
That is the connection that the gallery owner highlights.
Powerful, without a doubt, but it does not dispel the greatest suspicion: how is it possible that the most sought-after image, of the most British and universal author in history, remained until 1975 -when it was auctioned at Christie's- hanging in The wall of the Swinton House mansion, owned by the Danby family,
“The painting has survived for the last four hundred years, with little wear and tear, thanks to the fact that it was owned by a Shakespearean enthusiastic family, who kept it hanging in their library,” Phillips defends.
Already in 2016, an analysis by the Courtauld Institute concluded that the pigmentation of the painting corresponded to the time, and that its good state of conservation was due to the fact that it had remained immobile in the same place for a long time.
"Pure illusion."
This is how Professor Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, and one of the leading experts on the work and life of the playwright, has defined the
Daily Mail
newspaper 's claim.
"It is not labeled as a portrait of Shakespeare, who would surely have insisted that his family crest appear in a corner of the painting [a golden spear on a diagonal black stripe, and the French motto Non Sans Droict, Not Without Law],"
he
has said Dobson.
“And it bears no resemblance to portraits commissioned by family and friends: the Stratford tomb monument or the
First Folio
engraving .”
Bust of William Shakespeare at his funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon.Epics (Getty Images)
The only similarity that has been found between the new work and those that the historical consensus considers authentic is a minor physical trait, although those who have wanted to detect it have practiced a certain voluntarism.
The slightly drooping and swollen left eyelid, typical of a rare type of tear duct cancer that some doctors have attributed to Shakespeare, appears in the engraving and in the new painting, although much less noticeably in the latter.
fraudulent portraits
It is not the first time that the appearance of the image of the bard has caused a stir and expectations among academics and the British media.
"We constantly return to Shakespeare because we need him: no one offers us so many of the things we take for granted in this world," Bloom wrote.
There is a need for it to reappear, albeit as ectoplasm.
In 2015, the historian and botanist Mark Griffiths wanted to see the bard on the cover of
The Herbalist or General History of Plants.
, a book printed in London in 1597. Of the five human figures ―four men and one woman― surrounded by flowers and plants that appear in the engraved illustration, Griffiths was determined to glimpse in one of them a bearded Shakespeare and laureate of barely 33 years.
“The most important discovery of the last 400 years.
The true image of him, finally revealed, ” Country Life
magazine headlined
when publishing its exclusive, immediately reverberated by the BBC and the main British media.
It was actually Dioscorides, a Greek physician from the time of the Roman Emperor Nero.