Live Auction 5660Old Master and British Paintings
English School, 1602
Lot 24

English School, 1602

Portrait of a gentleman, formerly suggested to be William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), bust-length, in a black coat with a white tunic and a golden signet ring

Closed30 October 2014

Price Realised

GBP 18,750

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English School, 1602
Portrait of a gentleman, formerly suggested to be William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), bust-length, in a black coat with a white tunic and a golden signet ring
inscribed and dated ‘1602 / ÆT. SVÆ : 25’ (upper left), and ‘Sperando Ferendo viuo vinco :’ (upper right)
oil on panel
23¾ x 18 1/8 in. (60.4 x 46.1 cm.)
with an unidentified monogram (on the signet)

Private collection, England, circa 1814.
Private collection, Belgium.

Specialist note

This early portrait, seen by James Boaden some ten years prior to the publication of his catalogue of portraits of Shakespeare, was related by him to the celebrated Droeshout print, the only universally accepted likeness of the Bard. The enigmatic Latin inscription can be translated as ‘Hoping, Enduring, I live, I conquer’. A similarly cryptic motto, ‘Principum amicitias!’, albeit with a very different meaning, appears in the Cobbe Portrait, recently hailed as a newly-discovered life portrait of Shakespeare.