from a bit after he died, and think they are copies of this one (the same clothes, for instance). The facial proportions exactly match the engraving for the First Folio edition (which was printed by his friends, so it's thought they'd use a genuine portrait).
More here:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5877560.ecehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/europe/10shakespeare.html?ref=worldThe newly discovered picture has descended for centuries in the same family, the Cobbes. It hung in their Irish home, under another identification, until the 1980s, when it was inherited by Alec Cobbe who was a co-heir of the Cobbe estate and whose heirlooms were transferred into a trust. In 2006 Alec Cobbe visited the National Portrait Gallery exhibition ‘Searching for Shakespeare’ where he saw a painting that now hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington. It had been accepted as a life portrait of Shakespeare until some 70 years ago, but fell from grace when it was found to have been altered. Mr Cobbe immediately realised that this was a copy of the painting in his family collection.
The painstaking work of researching the picture has been carried out over the last three years by Mark Broch, curator of the Cobbe Collection. The research conclusively demonstrates that the Cobbe picture is the prime version of the portrait and establishes beyond reasonable doubt its descent to the Cobbes through their cousin’s marriage to the great granddaughter of Shakespeare’s only literary patron, Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton. In addition to the Folger copy, several other early copies of the Cobbe portrait have been located and no less than three of them have independent traditions as portraits of Shakespeare. In two cases the traditions date back to within living memory of the poet—providing compelling evidence that the identification of the sitter as Shakespeare was correct all along.
The conclusion that the sitter is Shakespeare is strengthened by the fact that the original picture, the Cobbe portrait, was inscribed with a quotation from the Classical writer, Horace, taken from an ode addressed to a playwright. The original and its copies are being considered together as a group for the very first time. Additional scientific investigation has been carried out to support the research including examination by x-ray at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge, tree-ring dating by Professor Peter Klein, Department of Wood Science, Hamburg University and infra-red reflectography by Tager Stonor Richardson.
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=29545“Principum Amicitias!” – beware the alliances of princes!
Some scepticism here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/mar/10/art-classics
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