UNITED KINGDOM: A painting of William Shakespeare that is said to be the only one made during his lifetime has been displayed in London. The value of the painting is more than £10 million.
The piece is being offered for sale by private treaty rather than through an auction by the undisclosed owner.
It is signed and dated 1608 and is the creation of Robert Peake, royal painter of King James I. On Wednesday, the artwork was displayed at the west London Grosvenor House hotel.
The image had formerly been displayed in the library of the Danby family’s former stately mansion in the north of England. Since that time, it has been privately owned.
The people behind the sale assert that there are “extensive” ties between Peake and Shakespeare and that he was frequently hired to depict important figures from Jacobean society and the court.
They also pointed out that he had been hired by the Office of the Revels, which was responsible for overseeing play presentations and had been employed by the Clerkenwell, London, location where some of Shakespeare’s plays were practiced.
But only two posthumous artworks of Shakespeare are usually accepted as accurately representing him—the engraving on the First Folio’s title page from 1623 and the sculpture at his Stratford-upon-Avon grave monument. At the age of 52, Shakespeare passed away in 1616.
Over the playwright’s paintings’ veracity in the past, there have been many assertions and denials made.
“Shakespeare’s only authentic portrait found in 2015 was created during his lifetime,” botanist and historian Mark Griffiths claimed.
He claimed that a 400-year-old book, The Herball or General Historie of Plantes, has an engraving on the title page that features four recognizably human figures, one of whom was the Bard at the age of 33.
2009 saw controversy around a portrait that was put on exhibit in Stratford-upon-Avon. Some people are still skeptical about the origin of the recent portrait.
Shakespeare-related claims about the picture, according to Sir Roy Strong, a former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, are “codswallop.”
At the time, the Shakespeare Found exhibition’s organizers insisted that the painting was of England’s most famous author.
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