Chandos portrait

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The "Chandos" portrait is one of the most famous of the portraits that may depict William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The portrait is named for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, who owned the portrait. The portrait was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London on its foundation in 1856 and is listed no.1 in its collection.

It has not been possible to solve the question of who painted the portrait and whether it really depicts Shakespeare. The plawright's other known contemporary image is the crude engraving in the posthumous First Folio (1623), made by Martin Droeshout, who had is very unlikely ever to have seen Shakespeare and who may have based his work on the Chandos portrait or, more likely, another (now lost) picture. Some claim that Shakespeare's friend Richard Burbage (1567–1619) painted it and later gave it to Joseph Taylor, also a member of King's Men, but there is also the possibility that Taylor painted it himself.

It is known that before the Duke of Chandos acquired it, the portrait was owned by Shakespeare's godson, William Davenant (1606–1668), who claimed to be the playwright's illegitimate son, according to the gossip chronicler John Aubrey. The Chandos portrait inspired a grander, more embellished mid-17th century imaginary portrait, called the "Chesterfield portrait" from a former owner.

In 2006, Tarnya Cooper of the NPG completed a three and a half year study of the purported Shakespeare portraits and concluded that the Chandos portrait was the most likely to be a representation of Shakespeare. Cooper points to the earring and the loose shirt-ties of the sitter, which were emblematic of a poet (the poet John Donne and Shakespeare's patron the Earl of Pembroke sported similar fashions). However, she acknowledges that the painting's authenticity cannot be proven. <ref>Higgins, Charlotte. 'The only true painting of Shakespeare - probably. The Guardian. March 2, 2006.</ref>

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