IDEAS & TRENDS Is That Really You, Sweet Prince?

We know so little about Shakespeare that we don't even know for sure what he looked like. Scholars have been quarreling over various purported portraits of him for years. The latest, the so-called Cobbe portrait, was unveiled last week by the Shakespeare expert Stanley Wells, who claimed that it was the only authentic likeness to have been painted in Shakespeare's lifetime, igniting yet another fuss among the dissenters. This much is certain: the portrait is painted on wood from the late 16th century, so the date is right; it shows a man in Elizabethan dress, and originally belonged to the family of Henry Wriothesley, Shakespeare's patron. The man in the painting, whoever he is, happens to be extremely handsome, glamorous even, and you have to look hard to see any resemblance to what has been considered until now at least the semiofficial likeness of Shakespeare -- the woodcut engraving by the Flemish artist Martin Droeshout that appeared in the front of the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works, published seven years after his death. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]