Among the many interesting Shakespeare items at the Folger Shakespeare Library is what has come to be known as "The Ashbourne Portrait". This painting was long rumored to be of Shakespeare, but with no certainty to the provenance of the attribution. However, in the late 1930's it became embroiled in the authorship debate when X-rays revealed that it was in fact on over-painting of a somewhat different portrait, a portrait that bore some special links to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford! This finding was reported in the January 1940 issue of Scientific American
The research for this 1940 article was carried out by Charles Wisner Barrell, and followed up on studies of the portrait carried out by Dr. M.H. Speilman (Connoisseur Magazine, Jan.-April and May-August 1910). Dr. Speilman's work was based upon his suspiscion that this "new" Shakespeare portrait (i.e. newly discovered in the mid-19th century) might possibly be just another fraud. To briefly sum up Dr. Speilman's work, he noted that the color of the paint that gave the age of the sitter as 47 in 1611 ( in the upper left, a perfect match for the Stratford actor, born in 1564) was also the same color gold on the thumb ring on the left hand and the emblem on the book, but it didn't seem to match the rest of the colors in the portrait. He also noted that the ruff around the neck seemed to be almost by another hand, and that the hair "seems to have been retouched". His final comment after examining the portrait was that it seemed to be "the presentment of a handsome, courtly gentleman ...it rather resembles one of the gentlemen who accompanied Queen Elizabeth in her progress to Hundson House according to the tradition."
Thirty years later Charles Wisner Barrell entered the picture. A confirmed Oxfordian, he had noticed that the Ashbourne bore a striking resemblance to the Welbeck portrait of Oxford, painted in 1575. Barrell decided to bring science to bear on this matter, and arranged for an infra-red study of the portrait to see if any changes and/or underlying elements could be discovered.
And clear evidence of changes in the portrait were found. To sum them up:
1) The portrait had been altered.
2) The original hairline had been raised an inch or more, transforming the sitter into a balding individual resembling the Droeshout rendering.
3) The original ruff around the neck had been altered. The original ruff appears to have been twice the size of the new one, and the original appears to have been of the fluted pattern worn by Elizabethan courtiers.
4) The gold paint used for the lettering in the upper left is the same as the gold paint used in the middle of the thumb ring and the middle of the book crest.
5) Under the dab of gold paint on the thumb ring was the unmistakable ghostly outline of a boar's head, one of the devices of the Earls of Oxford.
6) Under the gold painted inscription in the upper left are the outlines of a coat of arms nearly identical to that used by the Trentham family. Oxford married Elizabeth Trentham in 1592. The Ashbourne portait's name comes from an estate in the "Ashbourne" addition to Derbyshire. The Ashbourne addition was one of the properties of Elizabeth Trentham Cockayne, a great-grand-niece of Oxford's wife, Elizabeth Trentham, the Countess of Oxford.
7) The inscription of the original artist can be seen in the lower right. They are C.K. and drawn in a manner that makes it virtually certain that the portrait's painter was Cornelius Ketel, a Dutch portrait painter (1548-1616). Dr. Speilman had originally theorized that the painting was by a Dutch or Flemish painter. Also, in a 1604 account of Ketel's career, mention is made of portraits he did of the Duke of Oxford (Edward de Vere) and others of Elizabeth's court. The Ketel portrait of Oxford has never turned up.
All in all then, this portrait, thought for centuries to be a portrait of Shakespeare by the family that owned it, was apparently altered at some point in time to make it appear to be the traditional Shakespeare (with the addition of the sitter's age being 47 in 1611, with the redrawn ruff obliterating a courtier's ruff, with paint covering up a boar's head on the ring, and a hairline redrawn into a Droeshout look). Close analysis makes it virtually certain that the original portrait underlying the alterations is the lost Ketel portrait of Edward de Vere.
The close-up of the head used on our Home Page was redrawn by Society member Stephanie Hughes in an attempt to restore the original hairline. For many Oxfordians the Ashbourne portrait is felt to be the best portrait posterity has of the mature Shakespeare at the height of his powers. To look into the eyes of the Ashbourne portrait is to see the real Shakespeare, a far cry from trying to gaze into the eyes of the Droeshout. As Ben Jonson said of the Droeshout in the First Folio, "look not on his picture, but his book." He had a point.
But with the Ashbourne, we can look on a picture that allows us to make a bit of contact with Shakespeare the man (whoever he was).