Is This the Real William Shakespeare?

Following more than two years of extensive research, experts are now declaring this portrait to be the only painted of William Shakespeare during his lifetime:

"Also, the story of the painting - known as the Cobbe portrait - once again raises questions about Shakespeare's sexuality. Was he more than just good friends with the man who commissioned the painting, his patron the Earl of Southampton?"

And the painting's background: 

"The painting has hung on the walls of properties owned by the Cobbe family for about 300 years. The sitter has always been unknown, although there was an erroneous thought that it might be Sir Walter Raleigh. In 2002, art restorer Alec Cobbe, joint heir of the Cobbe estate, was at the National Portrait Gallery's Searching for Shakespeare exhibition and came upon a painting known as the Folger portrait (right), which itself, until 70 years ago, had been thought to be a life portrait of Shakespeare. The similarities between the two were obvious and Cobbe rang Wells immediately, setting in motion more than two years of extensive art historical, literary and scientific research. The result is the firm belief that the Folger painting is a copy of the Cobbe original. It is also likely to have been used by the teenage engraver who produced one of the most recognisable of Shakespeare images - the copper engraving of a bald, round-headed man on the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623."

Here's more on Cobbe and another of his portraits, of the Earl of Southampton.

A fascinating Channel 4 piece on the portrait, and a bit more on the Earl of Southampton, AFTER THE JUMP...

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"It’s more to do with dancing than with sexuality. A male dancer, whether he’s gay or straight, fits into a relationship with a female partner very happily. Getting away from that, making a convincing love duet, a romantic, sexual duet, for two men that is comfortable to do and comfortable to watch — I don’t know if you can. I’ve never seen it done...I have a way of approaching it so as to make it — I hate to say ‘acceptable’, it’s a terrible thing to say — but so that people don’t run screaming from the theatre. I let them find their own way with it, take it as far as they want in their own heads."

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