Shakespeare is a subject I’ve really been looking forward to. But I’ve always been thrown off by the lack of portraiture for this great man. We don’t have a single verified description or portrait of William Shakespeare from life – we pretty much only know what we know about him thanks to his friends gathering and publishing his works after his death. I’ve used the so-called Chandos portrait to recreate Shakespeare here – both in his own time and of course as a modern day man (I admit I love the pompous professor look on him).

A full YouTube video details his appearance and which other portraits may be Shakespeare.  There is no provenance to this painting, but if it is Shakespeare, it would be the one and only likeness of him taken from life.

Here are some reasons why Dr. Tarnya Cooper, a curator at the National Portrait Gallery, believes it might be him:

• The clothing the subject is wearing was popular between 1590 & 1610, the time when Shakespeare was having his greatest successes and therefore most likely to sit for a portrait.
• The gold earring suggests a “bohemian” appearance – common for a playwright.
• We can tell the subject is of reasonable wealth because of his all-back clothing. Black dye in large quantities was quite expensive.