Does this portrait really show Shakespeare’s ‘secret gay lover’? We asked an expert

A Shakespeare researcher has shared her view on whether a miniature portrait could have revealed Shakespeare’s secret gay lover. 

In an article published by The Telegraph on Thursday (4 September), University of Warwick art historian Dr Elizabeth Goldring suggested that a newly discovered 16th century miniature of Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare’s first patron, may have been a “love token”.

The miniature painting, which Goldring noted would usually be “worn on the body close to the heart and were frequently exchanged as love tokens”, was formerly part of a private collection within his family before it was purchased by an unnamed party. 

On the back of the portrait, a playing card’s red heart has had a black arrow painted over it, mimicking the spear found on Shakespeare’s coat of arms. 

Goldring said: “It’s really extraordinary, and I’ve never come across anything like it before.

“Common sense would suggest that the defacing probably occurred relatively early in its history – it’s such a visceral, violent reaction that it seems someone only with a connection to the subject would have done it.”

Saraya Haddad, a PhD researcher at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon whose MA dissertation explored portrait miniatures and their allusions in Shakespeare’s writing, told PinkNews that the finding reveals the “possibility” that they could have been lovers.

‘You’d want to flatter the person who was paying you’

“We shouldn’t eliminate it as a possibility that he and Shakespeare were lovers, but equally we can’t 100 per cent say they were either.

“In his writing, there’s so much that seems to break down the heteronormative idea of society. Famously, his sonnets, which were potentially dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, were very flattering. But it gets more complex, because you’d want to flatter the person who was paying you.”

She said of the wordsmith’s writing: “There’s something inherently queer going on with the gender swapping and what that says for sexuality and gender.

“I would personally never say Shakespeare was bisexual or pansexual. It’s just as possible, if not more possible, that he was not straight than that he was straight.”

‘I think we need to lean into the mystery’

Haddad added that she believes Shakespeare wouldn’t have wanted his sexuality to be labelled.

“We should see him not as a figure of heteronormativity at all, his writing isn’t that, but at the same time, I think he wouldn’t want us to be applying labels, but rather to be able to see that there is so much in his writing, language, plays, and poetry that does suggest a queer experience.

“I think we need to lean into the mystery, rather than trying to solve it, which I think is a queer thing in itself to do anyway.”

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