DE VERE WITHOUT A DOUBT

It has been drawn to my attention that the image I use for Anne Cecil de Vere is not of her but Cicely Heron (3:50). I apologize for the misidentification.

While many portraits done by Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1547 - 1619) the great Elizabethan portrait painter have no identifying names or labels, there are some which we can positively identify without a doubt.

One of these is a 1588 miniature portrait of Edward de Vere (1550-1604) the 17th earl of Oxford wearing white and gold tournament armor.

There is a similar portrait which has been mistakenly identified as Robert Devereux, the 2nd earl of Essex (1565 – 1601) showing a young man in black holding a woman’s hand coming from the sky.

I will demonstrate that the unnamed portait is of de Vere by superimposing the known portrait over this one and reducing the transparency of the de Vere until we see the one beneath. It will prove conclusively that the painting is of the 17th earl of Oxford and nobody else. Furthermore, corroborative evidence from de Vere’s personal life confirms that the painting was commissioned as a memento mori of his recently deceased first wife Anne Cecil (1556 – 1588).

As final evidence the miniature in question is not of Devereux, I show a portait of the earl of Essex which has a distinct feature clearly not in the miniature.

I hope you enjoy this video and please leave any comments or corrections below so that I can improve things in the future.
Have a great day and stay safe.
***
Some useful links:
I recommend starting with Alexander’s playlist Who Knew before diving into the other playlists as they follow from this starting point.

Perhaps the best sites for information on de Vere and the Oxfordian theory are the following:

[romanclay]

Sonnet 76: “That EVERy word doth almost tell my name.”
de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

[Greymalkin-]

Hilliard, like Holbein, Oliver, Clouet, etc., often (if not always) used playing cards as a backing to the vellum of his miniatures, and these were seemingly specifically chosen to convey something about the sitter as well as their status. Unfortunately the cards are often not described in listings, and I have no doubt that that will be the case for these portraits. However, I'm going to take this up as a personal project. It would definitely have meaning as the significance of cards appear to be universal with miniature portraiture of the time and thankfully it's quite well documented.

[enheduannapax]

I thought the date in the younger-looking portrait without the hat was an issue.

I wish someone would sort through all de Vere’s known and suspected portraits, including the Ashbourne, in one video. I’m also tired of seeing his father’s portrait in the white doublet being ascribed to him.

Fascinating! Good info on the mourning portrait!

[GildaLee]

Miniatures, that is, miniature paintings are what are being compared here, approximately 2 inches across. On that scale, is it really so unusual that two men, possibly related, resemble each other? However, spotting the 88 which may be equivalent to TTTT or 4T or 40 is interesting indeed.
Also, I cannot make out most of the painted inscriptions, but both miniatures are dated 1588.

[philiphavey]

Dever wrote the the major part of the works for the company managers Ferdinado Stanley and William Stanley who were the only ones who purportedly ever came in contact with Shakespeare.

[colinallan]

The portrait on the left was sold at Christies in 2013. It has attached to it the inscription Robert Devereux Earl of Essex. This is a recent addition and is doubtless one of the attributions Ron Roffel is referring to in his introduction.
Many portraits exist of the Earl of Essex. He was painted by Hilliard, Isaac Oliver and Marcus Gheeraerts amongst others.
He had dark curly hair and after he returned from Cadiz in 1596 he gew a large straight spade-like beard coloured orange.
He is alleged to be the Young Man Among the Roses painted by Hilliard and this shows a young man with dark curly hair with possibly signs of an orange moustache.

There can be no doubt that the man on the left is not the Earl of Essex.

However, I have a problem with the portrait on the right.
I have been unable to discover any of its provenance.
I can't find it among published portraits of De Vere and I confess I've never seen it used to illustrate him in articles. It would make a change from the usual ones.
It looks like a Hilliard painting but I cannot find it an any list of Hilliard's paintings.
I found reference to it being photographed in 1906 and in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection, but it doesn't appear to be there anymore.
Do you have any provenance ?
I would have thought Oxfordians would prefer this romantic portrait to the usual dour examples.
The man in the painting on the left is generally thought to be in his mid twenties.
In 1588 De Vere would have been 38. Neither of these portraits look like Elizabethan men of 38.
In 1588 Shakespeare and Marlowe were 24.
Both are better candidates than De Vere.

It shows a round faced young man with light curly hair and BLUE eyes.
The portrait in the National gallery - the Welbeck - which is usually used by Oxfordians shows us a man with a narrow face and BROWN eyes and very little hair but not curly.
The Pandolfini portrait shows the same. DARK eyes. The Marcus Gheeraerts portrait also.
If you stand back and look at the two portraits in this article you can see at once that they are not the same person. The one on the right looks like Steve Pemberton from the League of Gentleman.
The one on the left has a much thinner face.
They are both painted in 1588. De Vere's wife to whom he had hardly been faithful, died in June. Curious if they are both by Hilliard.
Presumably the sitter grew a beard in memory of his wife and later got rid of it for later portraits.

The reason why Oxfordians want De Vere to be the man in the left hand painting is because Leslie Hotson in his book, - Shakespeare by Hilliard - a portrait deciphered, - proposed that it was Shakespeare aged 24 reaching out to the hand of Apollo. Ever since then numerous people have sought to fit their favoured candidate into this young man shoes and thus become Shakespeare.

[johnanthony]

Waugh pointed out that the fingers are making an 'A A, ' and suggested that the hand was Apollo's reaching down from the Heavens. The words " Attici Amoris Ergo' " are believed to be an Apollo-reference and, including the accent after "ergo, " is 17 characters. I thought I'd found the 4T by also seeing the two 8's in the cursive (88=TTTT). 17 4T.
It's difficult to tell the gender of the hand (and the cuff/clothing that precede it), but it does all look kind of effeminate. And Oxford in mourning-colored attire is a good point.
I've tried to see what else the hands could be spelling (I thought VERE might be hidden in them) but 'A A' really does seem the best conclusion.
Interesting analysis.

[pilkpulk]

the collar pictured here also seems to be the same....

[williamrubinstein]

How does this relate to the authorship question?

[jwrigley]

Is that lady in the Holbein portrait not Cicely Heron? Do we know its his wife Anne?

[evilgeniusy]

How can these two blue eyed boys be Edward DeVere? The confirmed portrait shows him with brown eyes.

[DrWrapperband]

Curly hair and ear are near identical, must be DeVere.

[duncanmckeown]

Number "8"s? Sorry, I like a cypher as much as anyone, but this is not convincing. I'm not saying you are wrong...just not a convincing argument.

[zantlozantlom]

Same artist, but they could be also be twins. I suspect you are correct.

[patricktilton]

The earlier miniature's sitter seems to a have a slightly -- very slightly -- chubbier face. But, otherwise, yeah, they look damn near identical, though the hair being obstructed by the hat in the mourning portrait doesn't show us the same overall hairstyle, of course -- yet the hair COLOR is the same.

[thomridgeway]

He clasps the hand of dead wife Anne very lamely. She was a Cecil, so he obviously wasn't that keen.