Restorers wipe out Bard's last portrait

When art conservators restored two rare portraits of Shakespeare, they thought they were removing paint daubed on the canvases more than 100 years after his death to reveal "authentic" portraits beneath.

Now it has emerged that they were, in fact, wiping away priceless insights into the changing appearance of Britain's greatest playwright.

The images that had been superimposed on both paintings had actually been painted in Shakespeare's own lifetime, the Art Newspaper will reveal this week, and showed how he looked as he aged. The "restoration" could be one of art history's biggest blunders.

A newly discovered picture of Shakespeare called the Cobbe portrait (painted when he was still living) and another version called the Folger portrait were both irreversibly "cleaned up" in this way.

Research has revealed both portraits were probably altered during Shakespeare's lifetime, or within a decade or so of his death in 1616, while his friends and associates were still alive.

In the Cobbe portrait, the sitter was given a bouffant hairstyle, whereas in the Folger portrait his hair at the front was replaced by a bald forehead.

But why the changes? The Cobbe work is believed to have been painted for Shakespeare's patron the Earl of Southampton and it is possible the earl may have wanted a more flattering image.

The Folger portrait, on the other hand, may have been altered to reflect Shakespeare's appearance at the time of his death, six years after the original painting. The original represented Shakespeare aged 46.

When the overpaint was removed from the two portraits, in 1988 and 2002, it was not thought that either depicted Shakespeare.

- INDEPENDENT