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There is a portrait of a young man, aged 21, which was found by chance in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Because Christopher Marlowe was there and would have been that age, it is clearly a portrait of CM. I am very taken by the portrait, which sometimes appears on editions of his work, but it seems unlikely that someone would have commissioned the work then - unless there is some Da Vinci Code-style shenanigans which would mean he was a secret hero rather than a hapless double agent.
There is another portrait, known as the Grafton portrait, of a 24 year old, now in the John Rylands Library, which might be the same sitter as the Corpus Christi one, but which has been thought of as a portrait of Shakespeare. Short of (whuh-whuh whuh-whuh) some pretty darn tooting conspiracy, such as Shakespeare being Marlowe (and why would Corpus Christi have a portrait then?) or vice versa, there is clearly something wrong here.
A third portrait exists, the Janssen, but unfortunately the painting has been overpainted with a bald head, and is thought to depict Sir Thomas Overbury.
Then there is the Chandos portrait, authenticated by the National Portrait Gallery as dating from about 1610, and therefore of being Shakespeare.
Pause to see portrait of me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mike_stiffed_out_fs_air.jpg
Recently Stanley Wells has announced the existence of the Cobbe, which looks rather like Overbury, but is being declared as Shakespeare.
Yesterday Germaine Greer waded into this in the Grauniad, noting of the "Marlowe" and Grafton portraits that "the sitter in both portraits is dressed with a degree of magnificence that neither Shakespeare nor Marlowe could have managed." Isn't this rather missing the point - that these are paintings, not photographs? Leaving aside the borrowing of robes, it may be a face placed on an existing portrait. (I have no evidence for this, aside from the two portraits from the Laing Gallery which seem generically close in jewellery, posture and flow of dress, and the thought that it is surely quicker to get an apprentice to do the easy stuff whilst the master does the face). It is a Marlovian overreach to have a portrait done in robes that the vestment laws of the time would probably have prevented him from wearing. I still doubt it's him.
Greer also points to the Jonson portrait in which the playwright is "not dressed as a courtier but as a scholar". Yes, this is also true of the Grafton portrait - but the little Latin and less Greek grammar school boy was hardly perceived as a scholar in the same way as Jonson courted that.
My own feeling - it seems unlikely to me that any of these would be a portrait - it is much more likely to have happened once he retired to Stratford and grew rich on land.
There is another portrait, known as the Grafton portrait, of a 24 year old, now in the John Rylands Library, which might be the same sitter as the Corpus Christi one, but which has been thought of as a portrait of Shakespeare. Short of (whuh-whuh whuh-whuh) some pretty darn tooting conspiracy, such as Shakespeare being Marlowe (and why would Corpus Christi have a portrait then?) or vice versa, there is clearly something wrong here.
A third portrait exists, the Janssen, but unfortunately the painting has been overpainted with a bald head, and is thought to depict Sir Thomas Overbury.
Then there is the Chandos portrait, authenticated by the National Portrait Gallery as dating from about 1610, and therefore of being Shakespeare.
Pause to see portrait of me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mike_stiffed_out_fs_air.jpg
Recently Stanley Wells has announced the existence of the Cobbe, which looks rather like Overbury, but is being declared as Shakespeare.
Yesterday Germaine Greer waded into this in the Grauniad, noting of the "Marlowe" and Grafton portraits that "the sitter in both portraits is dressed with a degree of magnificence that neither Shakespeare nor Marlowe could have managed." Isn't this rather missing the point - that these are paintings, not photographs? Leaving aside the borrowing of robes, it may be a face placed on an existing portrait. (I have no evidence for this, aside from the two portraits from the Laing Gallery which seem generically close in jewellery, posture and flow of dress, and the thought that it is surely quicker to get an apprentice to do the easy stuff whilst the master does the face). It is a Marlovian overreach to have a portrait done in robes that the vestment laws of the time would probably have prevented him from wearing. I still doubt it's him.
Greer also points to the Jonson portrait in which the playwright is "not dressed as a courtier but as a scholar". Yes, this is also true of the Grafton portrait - but the little Latin and less Greek grammar school boy was hardly perceived as a scholar in the same way as Jonson courted that.
My own feeling - it seems unlikely to me that any of these would be a portrait - it is much more likely to have happened once he retired to Stratford and grew rich on land.
