there needs to be fic now
Shakespeare was a hottie.
And the hottie portrait may have been owned by Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's occasional patron and possibly the "fair young man" of the sonnets.1
They seem to have done a careful job of dating the portrait, although the identification of it as Shakespeare is a bit trickier, since it depends on the fact that later copies were thus identified. There's a history of any random Tudor or Stuart portrait being wrongly identified as that of someone famous, as a quick browse through the National Portrait Gallery's website will show. (Many sitters are identified as "Unknown woman; formerly thought to be Anne Boleyn" or the like.)
Still. Shakespeare was a hottie and there should be fic about him and Southampton having wild sex and plotting to overthrow the queen.
1I doubt the sonnet theory, personally, but if the portrait really was owned by Southampton that perhaps gives it more weight.
*****
And the hottie portrait may have been owned by Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's occasional patron and possibly the "fair young man" of the sonnets.1
They seem to have done a careful job of dating the portrait, although the identification of it as Shakespeare is a bit trickier, since it depends on the fact that later copies were thus identified. There's a history of any random Tudor or Stuart portrait being wrongly identified as that of someone famous, as a quick browse through the National Portrait Gallery's website will show. (Many sitters are identified as "Unknown woman; formerly thought to be Anne Boleyn" or the like.)
Still. Shakespeare was a hottie and there should be fic about him and Southampton having wild sex and plotting to overthrow the queen.
1I doubt the sonnet theory, personally, but if the portrait really was owned by Southampton that perhaps gives it more weight.
*****