portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of SouthamptonA miniature portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton – described as Shakespeare’s “patron and possible lover” – may have been discovered after 400 years in a private collection. The owners of the miniature contacted Dr Elizabeth Goldring, an honorary reader at the University of Warwick, after reading her book Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist. They thought the picture was in the artist’s style and wanted to identify the sitter. So, for the past few months, Dr Goldring (along with portrait miniatures expert Emma Rutherford of The Limner Company and literary scholar and Shakespeare specialist Professor Sir Jonathan Bate) has worked to authenticate the tiny picture. It is now believed to have been painted by Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite portraitist, Nicholas Hilliard, and to feature Henry Wriothesley. It appears to have been made in roughly the 1590s.Who was Henry Wriothesley, and how did he know Shakespeare? The then-3rd Earl of