YES THE CHANDOS PAINTING OF SHAKESPEARE IS INDEED A GENUINE PORTRAIT OF THE BARD
In the Norris Parker’s book, one can read that the Chandos painting pedigree was very unsastisfactory, made of unproven allegations and the painter was unknown. However according to George Vertue the most popularly accepted representation of Shakespeare (WS) was done by John Taylor, a player who acted for WS. Taylor was also a good friend of WS like John Sanders who did the Sanders painting of WS. So it is likely that Taylor knew Sanders and was aware of his painting. Taylor left his painting by will to William Davenant who was reputed to have been WS’s natural son. The Fig. 1 does show striking similarities between the Chandos and the Sanders painting at the level of the eyelid and major face scars under the left eye of WS and above the mouth.
Fig. 1, The left side of the sitters in the Chandos painting (A) and the Sanders painting (B) following an AI cleaning. The smaller upper right pictures are the untreated artworks. In both images large swellings or scars running from the corner of the left eye and going around the left corner of the mouth are indicated with red dots while the green dots show another common scar below the left corner of the mouth. Just above the mustache three round marks also common to both pictures are labeled by red dots. The left eyelid protuberance resulting from an immune disease (affecting both eyes) is shown in both sitters with blue triangles.
First in Fig. 1 the best painting images were chosen and those pictures were then ''cleaned'' by a recent AI technology developped by MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia (myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia) which enables the enhancement of resolution and sharpens the face appearing in them.
In Fig. 1, striking similarities are detected, indeed the swellings or scars running from below the left eye to the left corner of the mouth (red dots) as well as the swelling or scar right under the mouth left corner (green dots) are easily observed in both the Sanders (Fig.1B) and the Chandos (Fig. 1A) paintings. However the stronger beard of the sitter in the Chandos painting does hide the larger scars observed in the Sanders painting going down the cheek or toward the chin. The three round red marks above the mustache are part of the Stirling observation previously described in the Chandos painting and also recently found in the Stratford bust of WS. The eyelid protuberances so strongly developed in the WS from The Chess Players painting as well as in the dead mask (not shown) could easily be seen on both sitters (blue triangles).
With the exception of the eyelid protuberance, less severe swellings or scars are found in the sitter of the Chandos painting (done around 1610) showing WS at an older than the one in the Sanders painting (1603), time has partially healed those facial wounds in the Chandos painting.
So the AI cleaning did not removed those swelling or scars. They are not artefacts or the results of poor restoration, they are WS facial features that the painters wanted to reproduce in the Chandos and the Sanders paintings (Fig.1). Other common scars could be identified on those figures but the aim of this study is already fulfilled and this short study is the strongest evidence that the sitters in those paintings do represent the same person The Bard.
Furthermore as mentioned previously since it was likely that Taylor and Sanders knew each other and considering those common identical facial features shown in Fig. 1, it is clearly possible that Taylor used the Sanders painting as the model for his own painting. Sanders got the opportunity to capture WS still at his prime time, at a younger age but with the lifelong facial wounds which were later reproduced by Taylor in what became the Chandos painting.
The Chandos painting of WS is indeed a genuine of The Bard just like the Sanders painting is!
Jean-Pierre Doucet
04 23 2025
Notes:
As reported by Simon Andrew Stirling, at the age of 18 in 1582, WS was involved somehow in a brutal fight and came out with scars close to the left eye which remained visible for the rest of his life.
An art critic wrote that he would never believe that the sitter shown in the Sanders painting done in 1603 might become the sitter painted in the Chandos painting done around 1610. But it was forgetting that during WS time (outbreaks of diseases, limited medical knowledge, lack of sanitation, etc) ‘’the span of life on the average was shorter then and the ravages of years much quicker in consequence’’ (from Sharp Ogden).
MAIN REFERENCES:
Norris Parker J., (1885) The portraits of Shakespeare, Robert M. Lidsay, Philadelphia, 266 pages.
Sharp Ogden W. (1912) SHAKSPERE’S PORTRAITURE: PAINTED, GRAVEN, AND MEDALLIC, The British Numismatic Journal, Vol. VII 1910.1, Bernard Quaritch editor, London, 58 pages.
Doucet J.-P., THE KEY LEARNINGS FROM THE FINEST DROESHOUT’S ENGRAVING OF SHAKESPEARE
https://free.relayto.com/jeanpierre-doucet/the-key-learnings-from-the-finest-droeshout-sengraving-of-shakespeare-42s5fmb0qx9ms/JuKWgoyT1
Doucet J.-P., THE SANDERS PAINTING IS DEEMED TO BE AN AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE,
https://free.relayto.com/jeanpierre-doucet/the-sanders-painting-and-its-authenticity-as-aportrait-of-shakespeare-u5a1mfrhq4c7i/EHKHsvjp1
Doucet J.-P., THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN THE STRATFORD BUST AND SOME GENUINE PAINTIINGS OF SHAKESPEARE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsx9aneJYBs
Doucet J.-P., THE SHAKESPEARE IN VAN MANDER’S PAINTING "THE CHESS PLAYERS" IS TRULY THE SAME AS IN THE SANDERS’ PAINTING OF SHAKESPEARE
https://free.relayto.com/jeanpierre-doucet/the-shakespeare-in-van-mander-s-painting-thechess-players-is-the-same-as-in-the-sanders-painting-qrx3il9e2a6d6#page=1
Stirling S.A., Art & Will, artandwill.blogspot.com/2014/03/shakespeares-crab.html.
Stirling S. A.,The Faces of Shakespeare: Revealing Shakespeare's Life and Death Through Portraits and Other Objects
https://www.gold.ac.uk/glits-e/back-issues/the-faces-of-shakespeare-revealingshakespeares-/