The Hampton Court Portrait of Shakespeare: How an Examination of Costume Raises Questions

Above: Gustav II Adolf by unknown artist date unknown (left, Gripsholm Castle) & the Hampton Court portrait (Royal Collection, right). All images in this post are for comparison purpose and fall under Fair Use Law (see bottom of post for details). 

I've always rooted for the Hampton Court portrait of Shakespeare to be legit because I like how boisterous, affable, and regal the sitter appears. About a decade ago, following a series of emails I sent the Royal Collection, the curators there agree to X-ray their picture. I am not allowed to post the X-ray radiograph image they kindly sent me, but trust me when I say there were no smoking guns visible, although the radiograph was greatly obscured in many places due to repairs done upon the portrait's cradle and panel.

From the Royal Collection description of the portrait: "The panel is very coarsely painted and repainted, particularly to the head, to enhance the hoped-for likeness to Shakespeare . . . Tree-ring analysis, undertaken in 2010, revealed that that the oak panels on which the portrait was painted derived from the same tree, which was felled after 1616. This suggests the picture was painted sometime after 1621." 

(Note: according to Seeing Through Paintings (Kirsh & Levenson): "Dendrochronologists can determine the date of the felling of a tree but can say nothing about the time needed for dying a panel . . . art historians factor in the drying time by adding a minimum of 2 to 5 years to the felling date.") 

Acquired in 1834 as a portrait of Shakespeare from Penshurst Palace by the "sailor king" William IV, the picture was tested in 1937 with both x-ray and infra-red light by the photographic expert Charles Wisner Barrell, who later reported in the pages of Scientific American that his IR examination had detected a second collar, likely Elizabethan, hidden beneath the Jacobean fountain-fall collar visible on the portrait. (These spectral results disappeared after Barrell's death.) Barrell cited the hidden collar alongside a theory about an obscured sword of state as evidence the portrait had originally depicted Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, the man Barrell believe wrote the works of Shakespeare. 

Above: Welbeck Abbey portrait of Edward de Vere (left) & the Royal Collection's unknown Hampton Court sitter age 34 according to the inscription (right). 

Below: the Folger's Library's Halliwell Phillipps First Unique Proof of Shakespeare (left) a the Royal Collection's Hampton Court Sitter (right).

The Hampton Court's Jacobean fountain-fall collar was created using a commonly used lead-white pigment that X-rays cannot penetrate, so the hidden collar, if it exists, can only be exposed via IR examination, and indeed the X-ray result I studied with my amateur eye showed no hint of a hidden collar--nor would it. The visible collar is certainly compatible with the Royal Collection's Jacobean dating on the portrait (c. 1620-25) and likely dictated that dating (which was established before they tested the wooden panel in 2010). That said, other aspects of the sitter's costume remain vexing if we approach it as English portrait.

Smitten by confirmation bias, I had coasted along with the theory the portrait might depict Shakespeare for many years until one day I came across a portrait of Gustav the Great, king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. In almost all his portraits, Gustav  proudly displays his royally protruding belly. Gustav's portraits typically show him belted above the belly, or directly over the belly, thereby making portraits of him a bit easier to identify. The rotund belly has long been associated with regal stature.

Above: Gustav II Adolf, c.1630 by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas (Skokloster Castle, left) & the Hampton Court Portrait of Shakespeare (Royal Collection, London, right). Note how the belt buckles, though of different sizes, are identical in shape and strapped across the upper belly.

Even if you disagree about Gustav II being the sitter of the Hampton Court picture, the many portraits of Gustav supply evidence that the Hampton Court costume is neither Elizabethan nor Jacobean. The costume likely isn't even English. The displayed belly of the Hampton Court lends the illusion of a mid 1590s English-style portrait when bombast stuffing was exposed in melancholy disarray via an unbuttoned peascod-bellied doublet, but I suspect this is not a peascod doublet in the Hampton Court picture; instead the sitter is likely wearing a farthingale-type padding that lends the illusion almost of pregnancy.

Above: Gustav II flaunting the same style vented sleeves present in the Hampton Court Portrait. These sleeves could be unbuttoned to hang behind the back. (Gustav II Adolf, 1594-1632, kung av Sverige - Nationalmuseum - 39108, photo via Wikicommons).

Above: Henry Percy, the "Wizard earl," with bombast bared in pose meant to convey melancholy. Painted by Nicholas Hilliard. Image via wikicommons.

 

 

 

 

Above: the bombastic satirist Thomas Nashe shackled by bilboes with doublet undone and bombast displayed c. 1595. Image via wikicommons.

Below are some more comparisons worth pondering.

Above: Gustavus II by Jacob Hoefnagel 1624 (Google Arts Project, left) & the Hampton Court (RC, London, right)

Above: Awesome portrait of Gustav II by Matthaeus Merian the Elder 1631-02 (Google Arts Project, left) & Hampton Court (Royal Collection, right). The portrait on the left was likely painted about four years after the Hampton Court portrait (if we accept the inscribed age of 34 as valid). Note the similar sword hilts and pommels.

Above: Gustav II Adolph date artist and date unknown (Gripsholm Castle, National Museum Sweden) & the Hampton Court portrait (Royal Collection, right)

Above: Gustav II Adolph date and artist unknown (Nationalmuseum, Gripsholm Castle) & the Hampton Court portrait (Royal Collection, right). 

 

Anyone wanting a deeper dive should follow this link to a collection of still-existing costumes once owned by Gustav II, almost all of which reveal the same style jerkin or doublet with longish tapering skirts that come together to form an arrowhead pointing directly to where, decades earlier, we would have found a codpiece. Gustav was also frequently portraited wearing vented sleeves of the type known as hanging sleeves (not to be confused with sham sleeves); this is the same style sleeve found in the Hampton Court picture.

 Below: Costumes of Gustav II displayed in the National Armory in Stockholm. The doublet immediately below is displayed one of the king's rapiers very much resembling the rapier in the Hampton Court picture.

Above: The Hampton Court portrait (Royal Collection, London) displayed beside still existing costumes of Gustav II. Please also note the resemblance of the swords in the two above image.

Anyone interested in Gustav the Great can follow this link to a page featuring an illustrated description of his life. A king who inherited three wars, all of which he fought brilliantly (he's considered one of the greatest military leaders of all time), Gustav is also credited with bringing Sweden into the modern age. He died on the battlefield while leading a charge uphill in the Thirty Days War. If the inscribed age of 34 is correct on the Hampton Court portrait, then it depicts Gustav c. 1628, which would correlate the Royal Collection's dating of the wooden panel. And since Gustav the Great was a Protestant hero, it's almost certain a portrait of him would have existed inside the Protestant stronghold of Penshurst Palace.

So here's to Sweden's Gustav the Great. Though we have lost a poet, we have gained a monarch.

Jokes aside, I don't mean to speak in absolute terms. Obviously this argument is far from over and we won't know the truth until we finally see the IR-test results of the Hampton Court. Will that ever happen? I have no idea.

Note 1: the above argument is abbreviated so as not to overlap too much with my memoir STALKING SHAKESPEARE (Scribner 2023).

Note 2: I often defend Charles Wisner Barrell in my book. I've found him to be reliable and don't mean to disparage him here. I strive very hard to be neutral on the authorship debate whenever it overlaps the portraits rumored to be Shakespeare.

Related links: How To Date Elizabethan Portraits by Costume 

NOTE: ALL IMAGES USED IN THIS POST ARE FOR COMPARISON PURPOSE AND THEREFORE FALL UNDER FAIR USE LAWS.