Shakespeare Found! A Life Portrait at Last: Portraits, Poet, Patron, Poems (review)

I reviewed a first edition of this book, published in 2009; ¹ readers are referred to that review for a general description of its contents. The book's main point of interest to biographers was the bold claim that a portrait now in the collection of the Cobbe family is of William Shakespeare; and moreover, that it once belonged to the third earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's "patron," said to be the subject of a portrait in the same family collection. This revised edition was produced to accompany a recent exhibition of the "Cobbe" portrait at the Morgan Library, New York, and incorporates recent research that it is hoped will strengthen the case for the authenticity of the Shakespeare image.

Certainly one development is of considerable interest. At the time of original publication it was argued that the Cobbe portrait was the "master" from which, at an early date, several copies (or copies of copies) were made. At that point, one of these copies was only known in the form of a black-and-white photograph but in recent months the original has not only resurfaced but has been acquired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Scientific examination, we are told, has shown it to be an early copy, perhaps even contemporary with what is taken to be the original.

This, however, does not do much to buttress the claim that it is a portrait of Shakespeare. An effort to strengthen the attribution has been made by additional documentary research into the original portrait's alleged transmission from the third earl of Southampton, who died in 1624, to Charles Cobbe, in whose possession it (and the Southampton portrait), is recorded in the 1740s (although not, it must be added, under that name, it having been assumed by Charles Cobbe, presumably on information supplied to him, that it was Sir Walter Raleigh). No material, or circumstantial, evidence was produced in the first edition to substantiate this descent, only a genealogy to demonstrate that the earl's great-granddaughter Lady Elizabeth Noel (a third daughter of a granddaughter) married Richard Norton of Southwick, third cousin of Charles Cobbe, whose grandfather had married Honor Norton, of a senior branch of the family settled at Rotherfield. This I thought insufficient to justify such a bold claim, especially as no evidence was provided that any other artifact followed such a route. Chapter 4 has therefore been revised to address this issue.

It is argued, first, that Richard Norton can be shown to have been in possession of heirlooms belonging to the Wriothesley (that is, Southampton) family as the result of his marriage to Elizabeth Noel, the great-granddaughter of the third earl. These heirlooms, however, turn out to be nothing more than what sounds like a miniature "in an ivory case" of her grandmother, the countess of Southampton, and a lock of her mother's hair, items known to have been in Elizabeth's possession and which are said to have passed on her death to her husband, Richard Norton, even though they had been living apart for some years. ² From this the authors argue that the case for Elizabeth having brought Wriothesley portraits to Southwick has been strengthened: indeed, in their minds, it "confirms the route." Others, however, may not be so easily persuaded that the resurfacing of two minor items clearly of immediate personal importance to this one family member would automatically imply that a significant transfer of earlier family portraits had taken place.

Another piece of new evidence is cited to support the claim that the portrait (indeed, portraits), having reached the Southwick Nortons, then migrated to the distant Rotherfield ones, into whose family the Cobbes had married. But again, this proves to be highly circumstantial; namely that one picture, of a mother with her child, once thought to be Honor Norton of the Rotherfield branch (died 1703) has...