William Shakespeare portrait could be 16th century courtier
The Jacobean painting from the family collection of art restorer Alec Cobbe was thought to be the bard because it closely resembled the engraving in Shakespeare's First Folio.
It is also noticeably similar to another painting believed to be the playwright owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.
But now experts believe the elaborate lace collar and gold embroided doublet are too grand for the playwright.
Dr Tarnya Cooper, the sixteenth-century curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, believes the portrait bears a greater likeness to Sir Thomas Ovebury.
She told The Times: “if anything, both works, the Folger and Cobbe portraits, are more likely to represent the courtier Sir Thomas Overbury”.
An authentic portrait of Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613) was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1740 and bears a close likeness to the Cobbe painting.
In both pictures the sitter bears distincitve marks such as a bushy hairline and a slightly disformed left ear.
Overbury was an English poet and essayist. He was sent to the Tower of London in 1613 by James 1 after refusing to become ambassador to the court of Michael of Russia. Within five months of imprisonment he had been poisoned and died in September 1613.
The Cobbe portrait is thought to have been painted in 1610 - six years before Shakespeare's death - when he was about 46 years old.
It remained in the same family for centuries and was inherited by Mr Cobbe. In 2006, he visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw the Folger painting which was on loan from the Washington library...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
It is also noticeably similar to another painting believed to be the playwright owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.
But now experts believe the elaborate lace collar and gold embroided doublet are too grand for the playwright.
Dr Tarnya Cooper, the sixteenth-century curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, believes the portrait bears a greater likeness to Sir Thomas Ovebury.
She told The Times: “if anything, both works, the Folger and Cobbe portraits, are more likely to represent the courtier Sir Thomas Overbury”.
An authentic portrait of Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613) was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1740 and bears a close likeness to the Cobbe painting.
In both pictures the sitter bears distincitve marks such as a bushy hairline and a slightly disformed left ear.
Overbury was an English poet and essayist. He was sent to the Tower of London in 1613 by James 1 after refusing to become ambassador to the court of Michael of Russia. Within five months of imprisonment he had been poisoned and died in September 1613.
The Cobbe portrait is thought to have been painted in 1610 - six years before Shakespeare's death - when he was about 46 years old.
It remained in the same family for centuries and was inherited by Mr Cobbe. In 2006, he visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw the Folger painting which was on loan from the Washington library...