Shakespeare's Face

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

In May 2001, Stephanie Nolen, a Toronto Globe and Mail reporter, got
wind of a painting in private hands in Ottawa claimed not only as a
portrait of Shakespeare but as the only likeness surviving from his
lifetime. The printed story sparked off international public interest.
This book, in which Nolen’s story is interspersed with articles
written by specialist art historians, literary critics, etc., tells the
story of the scoop.

It is designed for nonspecialist readers—or should one say that it is
designed to provide what the Globe and Mail and the publishers believe
the general public wants? I have to report that I was initially put off
by Nolen’s breezy, slangy journalistic style. Shakespeare’s chief
claim to fame, after all, was to raise the English language to heights
which have never been equalled, and her prose seemed a betrayal of that
achievement. But the professional contributors, though occasionally
tainted by an impulse to “talk down,” are interesting and
impressive; we are privileged to watch a number of experts from
different disciplines tackling a difficult subject and coming to
something approaching a consensus.

Before Nolen came on the scene, the chief owner, with remarkable
doggedness and self-sacrifice, initiated the complex and expensive
process of submitting the portrait to a battery of tests (including
state-of-the-art scientific analysis). It passed all of them with flying
colors. Everyone seems to be agreed that it is an authentic portrait
from the beginning of the 17th century, without any sign of later
“alterations” that have so often proved the downfall of so many
rivals (a claimed Shakespeare portrait, we are told, turns up about once
every 18 months.)

But is it Shakespeare, “the face of genius,” as the journalists
persist on saying? The experts, almost unanimously, think not, though
they acknowledge the integrity and sincerity of the owners in their
claims. The book is nicely illustrated and pleasantly produced. Any
interested reader will learn much. I wish, however, that the emphasis
had been more on Shakespeare and less on the razzmatazz of the
publicity.