Experts Used Tree Rings to Date This Portrait to Shakespeare’s Lifetime

Clip: Season 23 Episode 2 | 2m 45sVideo has Closed Captions

Dendrochronology reveals surprising results about Steven’s portrait of Shakespeare.

Unlike other representations of William Shakespeare, Steven’s portrait was painted on wood panels rather than canvas. Researchers were able to pinpoint when the painting was made with dendrochronology, the scientific method of using tree rings to date events or artifacts, revealing surprising results.

11/12/2025

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-Other paintings have already staked their claim as being portraits of Shakespeare.

-There are very pretty portraits of Shakespeare.

But the one that is more likely, uh, to reflect at least what he looked like is the Chandos portrait.

The Chandos portrait uh, was probably painted, erm, by an actor in Shakespeare's company, so he knew what he looked like.

I like the eyes of Shakespeare in it because they really seem to show a presence.

You feel that, okay, this could be the man who wrote all those wonderful things.

-A very atmospheric and stylish portrait.

The provenance is very good.

It's been accepted right from really, Shakespeare's lifetime as a portrait of him or anyway very shortly after his death.

But there's no actual documentation that says it is him.

It just speaks to yo and so the fact that there's no silver bulle of authentification in a way is, is dwarfed by the, the charisma of the painting.

-Well, the Chandos portraits got a lot to recommend it.

It is known in, erm, living memory of Shakespeare to be a, a portrait of Shakespeare.

It also includes the same facial recognition.

If we compare that to, uh, this portrait, you've got a very high, erm, forehead, you've got large almond ope eyes, erm, you've got a beard.

I feel very confident that this represents Shakespeare.

-Based on scientific and stylistic analysis, experts think the Chandos portrait was painted between 1600 and 1610 when Shakespeare was between 36 and 46 years old.

Unlike the Chandos, which was painted on canvas, Steven's portrait is painted on a wood panel.

Using dendrochronology scientists can determine whether the panel would have existed in Shakespeare's lifetime.

-In this case, you've got a wooden pane with three separate panels, erm, and you can date the wood and you can use dendrochronology to do that, which is looking at the tree rings and seeing how the pattern matches a known set of data.

And we know from this that, that it's coming up as very late 16th century when the tree was felled.

So, dendrochronology is a really useful technique to give you a last date by which the painting must be after.

-The dendrochronology report on Steven's panel gave the last ring a date of 1592.

More proof the portrait is definitely from Shakespeare's lifetime.