A claim by the eminent Shakespearean Stanley Wells that a Jacobean painting
from the family collection of Mr Alec Cobbe, long held in Ireland, is a
“life portrait” of Shakespeare, has been widely publicized. From April 23,
Shakespeare’s birthday, the painting will be the centrepiece of an
exhibition at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon entitled
Shakespeare Found. Meanwhile, an illustrated brochure by Mark Broch and Paul
Edmondson outlines the basis of this exciting claim. Four surviving versions
of the portrait, of which the “Cobbe” is claimed as the original or “prime”,
can be shown to date from around 1610. “Long traditions” are mentioned which
identify the sitter as Shakespeare. However, no dates or sources are
provided for these “traditions”, which appear to relate chiefly to the
version now owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, whose
close similarity to Alec Cobbe’s picture seems to have got this ball
rolling. The Folger version has been altered at various times, apparently to
make a resemblance to Shakespeare more plausible, for example in increasing
the sitter’s baldness. Other key points made in support of the claim are the
alleged similarity of the “Cobbe” painting to the Droeshout engraving, the
world-famous image that was the frontispiece portrait in the First Folio of
1623; and the possibility that it was originally owned by Shakespeare’s
earliest attested patron, the third Earl of Southampton.
The “Cobbe” portrait is a splendid painting, whose sparkling colours have
benefited from recent restoration. The italic inscription at the top of the
picture, “Principum Amicitias!” – “the leagues of princes!” – appears too
large in scale, as well as highly unusual in its deployment of an
exclamation mark, and was perhaps added later. The “Shakespeare” claim does
not rely crucially on the authenticity of this motto from Horace’s Odes,
II.i, though the authors of the brochure remark that “it can be no
coincidence that Horace’s words were addressed to a playwright”. It might
have been helpful to examine the picture’s reverse for further inscriptions
or telling marks, but at the preview the back was veiled with a brown paper
screen. But the man portrayed, with his elaborate lace collar and gold
embroidered doublet, appears far too grand and courtier-like to be
Shakespeare. Though a leading “King’s Man”, Shakespeare was no nobleman, and
even his status as “gentleman” was repeatedly called in question by some of
the heralds. (As John Davies of Hereford records, both Shakespeare and
Burbage hoped for further preferment from James I, but didn’t get it.) When
players dressed above their rank offstage, it tended to get them into
trouble. It is hard to believe that Shakespeare would have been rash enough
to permit himself to be portrayed in such grand array.
The Wells team make much of an inscription on the “Folger” portrait describing
the sitter’s age as forty-six, and the picture’s date as 1610 – the correct
age for Shakespeare at that time. But the sitter himself, in all versions,
looks much younger – in the “Cobbe”, almost boyish. It is also remarkable
that all four versions on panel appear to have originated in the period
1610–20, while a fifth, a copy on canvas, is dated to c1630. It would seem
that the subject was a man of huge interest in the Jacobean period, such
that several noblemen wanted to possess a good copy of his image, but later
ceased to be so. If knowledgeable contemporaries believed this to be an
authentic image of “Sweet Master Shakespeare”, would there not have been a
market for many further copies or engravings after Shakespeare’s literary
re-birth in 1623, when the First Folio was published? (He had been dead for
seven years.) A single 1770 mezzotint of “Shakespeare” derives from the
“Folger” portrait, in its doctored, balder, version, but that seems to be
all. Claims made for a close resemblance between “Cobbe” and the Droeshout
engraving from the Folio are not hugely compelling.
Last week Dr Tarnya Cooper, the sixteenth-century curator at the National
Portrait Gallery, declared herself “very sceptical” about Wells’s claim, and
remarked that “if anything . . . both works [the Folger and Cobbe portraits]
are more likely to represent the courtier Sir Thomas Overbury”. A suggestion
made long ago by David Piper that yet another version of the portrait, the
“Ellenborough”, is of Overbury, is waved away as “mistaken” by the authors
of the brochure. Yet the views of experts such as Cooper and Piper cannot be
dismissed so easily.
An authentic portrait of Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613) was bequeathed to the
Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1740. This picture bears a startling
resemblance to the “Cobbe” painting (and its companions). Features such as a
distinctive bushy hairline, and a slightly malformed left ear that may once
have borne the weight of a jewelled earring, appear identical. Even the
man’s beautifully intricate lace collar, though not identical in pattern,
shares overall design with “Cobbe”, having square rather than rounded
corners. The original is now shrouded in the air-conditioned bowels of the
Bodleian, alongside many such treasures awaiting restoration. For many
years, the Overbury portrait was on open display in the library, and
Oxford’s damp and polluted air did it no good. In 1952 it could be seen to
have a “dark blue background”, and the sitter’s doublet was “slashed”.
Neither blue background nor decorative slashing is very obvious today. Yet
Overbury’s face and collar still shine out with reasonable clarity. The
Bodleian’s picture is considerably larger and its sitter is enclosed within
a newly fashionable “feined oval” surround. Below this oval an earlier
inscription, now barely legible, runs “Aetatis Suae 32 Anno Domini 1613”,
and a later one, above, records the picture’s bequest by Sir Thomas Overbury
of Barton, in Warwickshire. This was the birthplace also of the donor’s
namesake and forebear – a Warwickshire man, and a poet, but not a
playwright.
The Wells team make much of the likelihood that the “Cobbe” portrait derives
from the collection of Shakespeare’s early patron, the third Earl of
Southampton. But this is not so surprising. After the accession of James I,
Southampton’s court career flourished, and his preoccupations became
political rather than literary. The excellent account of Overbury by John
Considine in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography records that both
Southampton and Shakespeare’s later patron, Pembroke, were political allies
of Sir Thomas. Early in 1613 they supported his campaign to get Sir Henry
Neville appointed as Secretary, roughly equivalent to today’s prime
minister. Southampton, Pembroke and Overbury were all strongly opposed to
the Howard influence at court. But only Overbury, a passionately devoted
friend of James I’s minion Sir Robert Carr (later Viscount Rochester and
Earl of Somerset), whom he had originally encountered in Scotland at the
turn of the century, paid the full price for his hostility to the Howards.
He was an arrogant and stubborn young man. According to Aubrey, it was “a
great question who was the proudest”, Sir Walter Ralegh or Sir Thomas
Overbury – but opinion favoured Overbury. As a King’s minion’s minion,
Overbury’s status was more fragile than he knew. Unrelenting in his
opposition to Carr’s proposed marriage to Frances, née Howard (who, at the
time the match was proposed, was still married to the third Earl of Essex),
he refused various diplomatic postings offered to him as escape routes. On
September 21, 1613, hours after telling Sir Henry Wotton how well his
courtly career was going, Overbury was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower.
He had succeeded in offending both the Queen (at whom he and Carr are said
to have laughed mockingly through a window) and the King. Four months later
he was dead. Whether this was the result of repeated attempts to poison him,
or, as Considine suggests, the ministrations of court physicians, we shall
never know. But the upshot was that Sir Thomas Overbury immediately became a
celebrity, his colourful story nourishing both court gossip and
penny-dreadfuls. Many of his former friends and allies, including
Southampton, would have wanted to possess visual mementoes of their friend.
He was also mourned by members of his large family, and especially by his
devoted father, Sir Nicholas. Perhaps it was he who commissioned the
portrait later given to the Bodleian. It may have been painted by the
younger Gheeraerts, possibly on the basis of an Isaac Oliver miniature, as
hinted by the blue background. With its solid provenance – first with the
Overbury family, then with the library – the “Bodleian” Overbury appears to
be the “prime” version of which the “Cobbe” portrait and the rest are fine,
but smaller, copies. The lack of later copies is readily explained. National
events occurred in the mid-century that were even more sensational than
Overbury’s murder.
For myself, I can live with the Droeshout and the Stratford funerary
monument’s “pork butcher” images of Shakespeare.
Katherine Duncan-Jones is the co-editor of the Arden (Third Series)
Shakespeare's Poems, published last year. Her biography Ungentle
Shakespeare: Scenes from his life was published in 2001.
