There’s a portrait of Shakespeare hanging in the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, University of Guelph. It’s called “The Sanders Portrait”, after the family that owns it. Here it is:
Actually I’m just figuring out the feature that allows pictures to be placed in LJ entries. 🙂 But isn’t this a great picture? Wouldn’t you like to go out for a beer with a fellow like him?
The art centre has had art experts and chemists and all sorts of other people test it for its veracity. Some experts say it is dated to 1603, when Shakespeare would have been 39, a much older man than the portrait sitter. But other experts say this is fine: it would come from the time when he had “made it” as an artist, and so was able to afford the kind of clothes you see here. And besides that, I just like this one better: he hasn’t got that silly white collar that looks like a millstone made of lace, and he isn’t balding.
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