SandersReviewAltrocchi

What's in a Face? A review of Shakespeare's Face

By Paul H. Altrocchi, M.D.

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. Whatever each man wishes to be true, he also believes to be true."

Demosthenes, ca. 340 BC 1

Julius Caesar was more succinct than Demosthene: "Men willingly believe what they wish to believe." 2 In yet another tribute to the power of Conventional Wisdom, attribution of a newly-emerged painting from underneath Granny's bed in Ottawa as the only existing portrait of Shakspere of Stratford painted from life, has not only made worldwide headlines but has led to a book, Shakespeare's Face, published by a major publishing house, Alfred A. Knopf of Canada.

Despite the high likelihood that the book's title is in error and that the so-called "Sanders Portrait" does not justify a book, Stephanie Nolen has done an admirable job of investigative reporting. She has done her homework well, writes very competently and spins an intriguing tale.

In May 2001 Ms. Nolen entranced Stratfordians with her article in Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, announcing the discovery of a probable portrait of William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon. With the help of a coterie of academic experts, her book tells the story of the mysterious portrait, claimed to have been owned for 400 years by the Sanders family of England and Canada, who affectionately call the portrait "Willy Shake." Stratfordians now refer to the painting as the Sanders portrait.

As readily admitted by Nolen's experts, Stratfordians would love to bury, once and for all, Droeshout's First Folio face of the Man from Stratford, described by Sir George Greenwood as "a leering hydrocephalic simpleton," as well as the face of the country-bumpkin grain merchant depicted on the remodeled bust in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church. Both of these unattractive faces have long been held by Stratfordians to be authentic, not- withstanding that each was created after the death of their Bard.
So it is no wonder that Stratfordians have a powerful initial impulse to leap on the bandwagon and eagerly clutch a new face claimed to be their idol, especially when the small (sixteen and one-half by thirteen inches) portrait displays a handsome visage, intelligent quixotic eyes and an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile.

Stephanie Nolen was educated at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the London School of Economics. She is a respected foreign affairs correspondent for The Globe and Mail.

In her 330-page book, Nolen gets into trouble only when she herself becomes too Stratfordian and when she interrupts her interesting narrative with eight often-intrusive chapters by her experts. Her Stratfordian professors are a distinguished group, including Jonathan Bate of the University of Liverpool, Tarnya Cooper of University College, London, Marjorie Garber of Harvard, Andrew Gurr of the University of Reading, Alexandra Johnston of the University of Toronto, Robert Tittler of Montreal's Concordia University, and Stanley Wells, formerly of University College, London, and now Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. All add luster and spice, liberally sprinkled with intriguing pearls, but not infrequently with material of dubious relevance to the tale at hand.

Only a few stoop to the usual ill-conceived dogmatic Stratfordian mythology, e.g., Jonathan Bate, who states that he will "here and now put to rest for good the image of Shakespeare as an ill-educated country bumpkin."3 He overstates that "We'll never find an alternative candidate for the authorship, since the plain fact of the matter is that Shakespeare (of Stratford) did write the plays."4 Bate then confidently predicts that Alan Nelson's forthcoming biography of "the wretched Earl" will cause "the case for Oxford as Shakespeare to die in the early twenty-first century."5

Did someone say, "Piffle!"? The words of Hamlet come to mind: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."6

The Sanders family tradition holds that their direct ancestor, John Sanders, born in 1576 in Worcester, England, moved to London as an actor and joined "William Shakespeare's acting company," the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He also "dabbled" in oil painting and in 1603 painted the portrait of his friend and colleague, William Shakspere. For reasons unknown, he kept the painting. According to family lore, the portrait has been passed down through at least twelve generations in the family, one branch of whom migrated to Canada in the early 1900s along with the painting. Each of the Canadian generations has been told that the painting-sometimes hanging from a wall, sometimes wrapped and stored-is an original of the great playwright. The portrait has been treasured as a valuable family heirloom for 400 years.

In 1908 the painting was analyzed by Marion Henry Spielmann, the world-renowned art critic who had published a detailed analysis of Portraits of Shakespeare in 1907. Spielmann concluded that the portrait was indeed painted in Jacobean times but was later altered and the right side "trimmed" immediately adjacent to the red-painted "1603" in the upper right corner. He described as "not believable" a paper label on the back proclaiming the portrait as Shakspere with his birth and death dates (vide infra). He published his opinions in the February 1909 issue of The Connoisseur.7

The present owner, Lloyd Sullivan of Ottawa, spent ten years and much money subjecting the portrait to all available modern forensic analysis techniques, which he believes have validated his family's traditional beliefs. He has been honest and open throughout his search for the truth, despite the enormous potential worth of the portrait if it is indeed Willy Shake. Sullivan exhaustively researched his family's genealogy in England and Canada but was unable to fill a gap between John Sanders in 1605 and the first entry in the Sanders family Bible made in 1790.

As to the portrait's provenance, there is no mention of it in family records until 1908, when Sullivan's great-grandfather loaned it to Spielmann for analysis. He told Spielmann that the painting had been in his family for nearly a century, implying that it didn't come into Sanders family possession until the early 1800s. Does that mean, contrary to Sanders family tradition, that the portrait was not in the family for the first 200 years after 1603? Lloyd Sullivan has not been able to discover information which bridges the vital gap in Sanders's genealogy and the portrait's provenance.

The paper label on the back of the portrait, now readable only with special enhancement techniques but easily read and recorded by Spielmann in 1909, states:8

Shakspere
Born April 23 = 1564
Died April 23 -- 1616
Aged 52
This Likeness taken 1603
Age at that time 39 ys.

For several reasons, the label immediately raises suspicions:

1. It is a strange label, too complete, too explanatory, protesting too much.9 The anti-dissimulation hairs on the back of one's neck transmit a tingling signal of
disease.

2. If the label was made by the painter in 1603, how would the labeler have known the date of death? It reminds one of an archaeological potsherd dated 232 BC.

3. As the experts point out, the exact date of Shakspere's birth is not known, only the date of his baptism on April 26. The birthdate of April 23 was chosen in the mid-1700s to accord with the feast day of England's patron saint, St. George, and to coincide with his April 23 death. According to Nolen's label experts, who cite Samuel Schoenbaum, the April 23 date for Shakspere's birthday did not become commonly accepted until after the publication of a volume of Shakespeare's plays by George Steevens in 1773.10 Therefore the label itself cannot have been written until more than 170 years after the painting was done.

4. Several experts express concern that the phrase "this likeness taken" is not consistent with word usage in the Elizabethan or Jacobean eras.
5. Nolen's paleography experts conclude that the handwritten script is in a style of the late 1700s, not the early 1600s.

These data suggest that the label was most likely written in the late 1700s. Accelerator mass spectrometry studies on the paper label, made from linen rag, yield a radiocarbon date between 1475 and 1640. Why, then, was 150-year-old paper chosen for the label? Was this an initial effort by the then owners to deceive and, if so, why? Was the painting about to be sold, perhaps to the Sanders family, as an "authentic" portrait of the great playwright?

The date of the late 1700s agrees closely with Lloyd Sullivan's great-grandfather telling Spielmann in 1908 that the painting had been in the family's possession for "nearly a century," i.e., since the early 1800s. Obviously, this contradicts what the Canadian branch of the family has been taught to believe in recent generations, namely that they have owned the painting since 1603.

Nolen's paleographers appear a bit too cooperative with the central theme of the book when they conclude at the end of their chapter, after providing compelling evidence against the label's authenticity, that "we believe there is nothing in the label that disproves the ascription" of the Sanders portrait as being of Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon.11

Nolen accepts their final conclusion and does not seem to recognize the label's potentially disastrous significance for the Sanders family theory. Several experts, as well as this reviewer, believe the portrait shows a man significantly younger than 39 years, most likely in his 20s-another huge problem for the portrait's validity as Shakspere.

Nolen competently guides the reader through the detailed forensic analyses of the portrait, all of which agree that the age of the portrait is quite consistent with the large red date of 1603 in the upper right corner and that it is an original portrait, not a paint-over of a pre-existing painting. Nolen's descriptions of advanced scientific techniques are clearly explained as the story unfolds and will be discussed more fully in Part II of this article.

Nolen notes that some of her experts equivocate in their impressions of the painting. Others seem biased by the book's title and their own eagerness to extirpate the unpleasant, "authentic" village-idiot faces of the Droeshout engraving and Holy Trinity Church bust. Some experts consider it "a very strong likelihood" that the Sanders portrait is indeed Shakspere, or "it looks the part" or "it well may be."
In the book's final chapter, Nolen asks each expert to stop waffling and answer definitively the following questions:

1. Do you think the portrait is authentic to 1603?
2. If so, is it a portrait of William Shake- speare of Stratford-on-Avon?
3. Does it really matter and, if so, why?

Of the seven experts, one still equivocates and another says the Sanders family "might just possibly be correct." Nolen, as a self-admitted non-expert, leaves it up to the reader to decide. The other five members of the distinguished panel, however, state strongly that they do NOT believe the portrait is of Shakspere of Stratford.
This is a rather impressive statistic and one wonders about the appropriateness of the book title, Shakespeare's Face.

Shakespeare's Face can be ordered for $34.95 from Amazon.com, including shipping, or from any bookstore. It is recommended because of its competent whodunnit approach, its readability and its instructional content, including seven chapters by Shakespeare experts. The book is particularly relevant because of the many recent Oxfordian articles on the remarkable amount of information which may be gleanned by precise portrait analysis.12 De Vereans may easily overlook the usual Stratfordian biases and derive a great deal of useful information from Stephanie Nolen's well-illustrated book.

This reviewer sides with the majority of Nolen's panel that the Sanders portrait does not represent William Shakspere (and certainly not William Shakespeare!) because:

1. Except for Sanders family tradition, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the portrait represents William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon. There is a major gap in Sanders genealogy, despite diligent search, and a cavernous vacuum in provenance. The evidence suggests that the Sanders family may not have owned the portrait for the first 200 years of its existence, from 1603 until the early 1800s. These represent immense, even insurmountable, defects in essential evidence required to prove portrait authenticity, and fatally wound Lloyd Sullivan's honest but flawed argument.
In 1966 Sir Roy Strong, esteemed senior art critic of England, was consulted about the Sanders portrait by the National Gallery of Canada. He responded that without a proven pedigree documenting ownership of the portrait to the early 1600s, there was no point in even considering the portrait as a valid representation of Shakspere.13

2. For all of these reasons the paper label, with its several incongruities, is considered evidence against the portrait being Shakspere. It suggests a deceptive origin and invalidates itself, contributing significant evidence against the Sanders family hypothesis.
3. Several experts and this reviewer agree that the portrait shows a man in his twenties, not aged 39, which was Shakspere's age in 1603. If any younger than 39, the portrait cannot be that of Shakspere.

4. The forensic analysis of the painting merely confirms that the portrait is genuine for the date of 1603 with no evidence of tampering.
5. There is nothing in the portrait itself which lends credence to the hypothesis that the sitter is Shakspere.

If the portrait is not of William Shakespeare, the question is then, "who is it?" I will now attempt to answer that question, using material from Nolen's book and from other sources. (See "Probable identity of Sanders portrait" beginning on page 26.)

References

1. Demosthenes. Third Olynthiac, section 19.
2. Julius Caesar. De Bello Gallico, part III, p. 18.
3. Stephanie Nolen. Shakespeare's Face. Alfred A. Knopf, Canada, 2002, p. 110.
4. Nolen. Ibid., p. 125.
5. Nolen, Ibid., p. 124.
6. Edward de Vere. Hamlet I, v, lines 168-169.
7. Marion Henry Spielmann. "The 'Grafton' and 'Sanders' Portraits of Shakespeare." The Connoisseur, February, 1909.
8. Ibid.
9. Alexander Leggatt. In Nolen, op. cit., 322-323
10. Alexandra F. Johnston, Arleane Ralph, and Abigail Anne Young. In Nolen, op. cit., p. 278.
11. Nolen, ibid., 279.
12. For example, see recent articles in Shakespeare Matters by Barbara Burris on the Ashbourne portrait (Fall 2001, Winter 2002 and Summer 2002), and articles by Paul Altrocchi on the First Folio Droeshout engraving in the De Vere Society Newsletter (July 2001) and on portraits of William Cecil in Shakespeare Matters (Fall 2001 and on the "Elizabeth Pregnancy Portrait" in Shakespeare Matters (Winter 2002)
13. Sir Roy Strong. In Nolen, op. cit., 153.

Fellowship Home | Virtual Classroom