Cobbe portrait

The Cobbe portrait is an early Jacobean panel painting of a gentleman which has been argued to be a life portrait of William Shakespeare. It is displayed at Hatchlands Park in Surrey, a National Trust property, and the portrait is so-called because of its ownership by Charles Cobbe, Church of Ireland (Anglican) Archbishop of Dublin (1686–1765). There are numerous early copies of the painting, most of which were once identified as Shakespeare. The Cobbe original was only identified in the collection of the Anglo-Irish Cobbe family in 2006, and had until then been completely unknown to the world. Evidence uncovered by researchers at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust led to the claim, presented in March 2009, that the portrait is of William Shakespeare and painted from life. Many scholars dismiss this theory and have provided evidence to identify the portrait as one of Sir Thomas Overbury The portrait has been the centrepiece of two exhibitions dedicated to it: Shakespeare Found: a Life Portrait at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, from April–October 2009 and The Changing Face of William Shakespeare at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, from February–May 2011. An illustrated catalogue provides details of the painting and its provenance.

Support for the identification is drawn from several strands of evidence:

The identification has received support from Shakespeare scholars Stanley Wells, Henry Woudhuysen, Jay L. Halio, Stuart Sillars, and Gregory Doran, Chief Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and art historians Alastair Laing, curator of paintings and sculpture at the National Trust, and Paul Joannides, Professor of Art History at Cambridge.

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