THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT Gallery has just announced that a portrait of a young man known as the Grafton Portrait is not that of William Shakespeare. It has thus exploded decades of what has been considered to be speculation or wishful thinking.

It is interesting to note, however, that the gallery have not come to this conclusion on the basis of scientific tests; the experiments on paint, on canvas, or on the wooden frame, have not yielded any negative results. The painting is undoubtedly of the late 16th century. The gallery has come to its conclusion simply on the basis of biographical speculation, which is not perhaps the proper sphere of the art expert. It has decided that in 1588, when the portrait was completed, the 24-year-old Shakespeare was neither rich nor famous enough to have been painted in an elaborate doublet of silk or satin. I believe this to be quite mistaken. In my recent study Shakespeare: The Biography, I came to the conclusion that by 1588 the young Shakespeare was in exactly the position to have his portrait painted as a relatively affluent and “coming” young man. Indeed I think it almost inevitable that his portrait would have been painted.

The Grafton Portrait is named after the Duke of Grafton, who is believed to have owned it in the early 18th century. It was discovered in the possession of a northern family in the 1880s and was eventually presented to the John Rylands University Library in Manchester. It shows a fashionably dressed young man with expensive doublet and collar. He has a slightly long face with what looks like a close-cropped beard and a faint moustache; he has large expressive eyes, a wide forehead and a full mouth.

Above the sitter are to be found the words “AE SUAE.24” and then “1588”. The sitter’s age was, in other words, 24 in the year 1588. That fits Shakespeare’s case. On the back of the portrait has been written W + S, an indication that someone, at some time, believed the painting to be of Shakespeare. So why should the experts of the National Portrait Gallery reject the attribution? They do so on the ground that he was not wealthy enough to have commissioned the work. It looks to have been the work of an amateur, in any case, or one of those hired artists who could be found in Southwark, Blackfriars and elsewhere. So it may not have been altogether expensive.

But in my biography I have described how, by 1588, Shakespeare had already written Titus Andronicus, an early, and inferior, version of Hamlet, The Taming of A Shrew (later to be transmogrified into The Taming of the Shrew) and The Troublesome Raigne of King John (the forerunner of his more famous King John). He was, in other words, a young dramatist who had already had remarkable success with history plays, comedies and revenge tragedies. The year after the portrait was painted he was being attacked by a rival as a plagiarist and simpleton who could only “bodge up a blank verse with ifs and ands”. Shakespeare was already well known enough, and successful enough, to attract carping critics. There is no reason, then, to accept the National Portrait Gallery’s description of him as impoverished and anonymous. Quite the contrary.

The experts and scholars have done one service. They have concluded that the paint and canvas do indeed date from 1588. The portrait is not one of those fakes that occasionally emerge on to the market as the true image of Shakespeare. They have also concluded that the original age placed above the sitter was “23”, which was then changed to “24”. This might seem ground for suspicion, suggesting that there was some manipulation of dates. But they have also demonstrated that the correction was made at the time. It was altered when the portrait had just been completed, or was about to be completed. In other words, someone noticed the mistake. This is more than likely to have been the sitter himself.

There is one other clue to the identity of this sitter. If you place the Grafton Portrait beside the famous Martin Droeshout engraving of the older Shakespeare that adorns the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, you will see a remarkable resemblance between the two physiognomies. Of course none of this is enough to “prove” that the Grafton Portrait is that of Shakespeare. Proof is not available in this case. All that can be said, with reasonable certainty, is that the grounds for the disavowal of the painting by the National Portrait Gallery are highly dubious. If you read my biography, you will gather my reasons for thinking so. If you look at the Grafton Portrait with unbiased eyes, it may be the face of Shakespeare staring back at you.

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