Recently revealed: The Bard himself?

Do we finally know what the Bard looked like? After three years of testing and research, experts have now concluded that a painting that has hung in a private home in Ireland for over three hundred years is the rarest of the rare: the only painting of William Shakespeare done during his lifetime. As an Associated Press wire story by Gregory Katz reports, “the portrait has been in private hands for several centuries but the owners — the Cobbe family — had no idea the man in the painting was responsible for so many enduring masterpieces.” But all that changed when Alec Cobbe strolled into a travelling art show in London and saw a copy of the painting labeled as a portrait of Shakespeare.

Indeed, Paul Edmondson, director of learning at the Shakespeare Learning Trust, says one thing convincing scholars that it’s a portrait of Shakespeare is the fact that so many copies were made of the painting. Still, says Edmondson, “We’re 90 percent sure that it’s Shakespeare. You’ll never be entirely certain. There will always be voices of dissent.”

A report in the New York Times by John F. Burns provides instant evidence of that: “He is dressed in elaborate white lace ruff and a gold-trimmed blue doublet of a kind worn only by the wealthy and successful men of his age.” Too wealthy, say some, to be The Bard.

At least all concerned seem to agree on one thing: the man in the portait is a real “head-turner of a man.”