The Many Faces of Richard III--Part 1

I love portraits. I love looking at the faces of the past and thinking about what were they like as people. Looking at the Many Faces of Richard has made me think more about him as a person and ruler, not just as a bunch of bones.

The scientists at the University of Leicester made a 3D scan of the skull and sent it off to Caroline Wilkinson, Professor of Craniofacial Identification at the University of Dundee.There, she used a computer process called "stereolithography" to add muscles and skin to the skull.

The resulting face was then made into a three-dimensional plastic model, painted, with prosthetic eyes, wig, and clothing added to create a realistic appearance.

Richard's Bust in the
King Richard III Visitor Centre

This is the face that was created as a result of Dr. Wilkinson's work:

The facial features of the bust are amazingly similar to the most contemporary portraits we have of Richard, including the strong jaw line, nose shape, and set of his eyes.

One thing you might notice with this reconstruction is the blond hair. Another study performed later discovered that Richard had blue eyes and blond hair, probably as a boy. Most portraits of the King show him with dark hair. The first reconstruction had duplicated the hair colour of the portraits, but since this study has come out, they have replaced the original wig with a much lighter one.

Having blond haired and blue eyed relatives in my own family, I was surprised that they would have bothered with the wig change. Many towheads can darken to brown or even a near black as they age, which has happened to many of my Scandinavian relatives. Perhaps a closer study of Richard's ancestral portraits and their physical descriptions would have been informative as to whether Richard was likely to be this blond at his death.

One of my favourite Richard portraits is actually this little portrait of him and his wife, Anne Neville, from the Salisbury Roll of Arms, ca. 1463.

Although the portrait is very formal and the figures rather two-dimensional, I am attracted to the expressions. Richard is looking towards Anne, who is looking straight ahead. He is leaning away from her, but perhaps that is because he doesn't want to poke her with his sword. She looks very placid and content. They look very young and confident. Although this portrait would be contemporary with Richard and Anne, I seriously doubt there is any resemblance to the real people. That would have been typical of the time. He would be shown with his symbols, such as the white boar which is outside of this cropped picture, to tell you who it is. Actual facial resemblance was not a big concern in book illumination at this time.

This portrait is the oldest surviving portrait painting of King Richard, done in about 1520, 35 years after his death. It was not done from life but from a lost original belonging to the Paston Family of Norwich.

This portrait of Richard with a broken sword was created between 1523 and 1555. I see some similarities in the chin, nose, and eyes.

This portrait found in the National Portrait Gallery in London, was done much later, at the end of the 16th Century. It is one of the most famous pictures of Richard. He is in a similar pose to the first portrait. I am wondering about his garb. I think it looks more like 16th Century clothing. The painting is very striking with the rich brocade background, the gold floral design at the top, and the strong colours. Richard retains his previous facial features and his look of strong determination.

Compare the previous portrait to this one, also found in the National Portrait Gallery and painted at the end of the 16th Century. It is clearly similar and may have either been a copy of the other one, or they both were copies of something else. This artist seems to lack the finesse of the previous painter. Richard's face looks fuller, his eyes smaller, but his chin and nose shapes are still the same.

Here is another painting, this one later from 1675-1700 by an anonymous British painter. This one is beginning to look more different than the previous ones. I see a much different, longer nose, more hostile-looking eyebrows, and a less pleasant expression in  his mouth and eyes. I can imagine that this painter has been heavily influenced, not only by the previous portraits, but also by Shakespeare's portrayal.

One last portrait of Richard III that caught my eye is this one, done in England about 1800. It is called "Imaginary Portrait of King Richard III" and is at Blickley Hall in Norfolk. You might wonder why it is called an "imaginary portrait." I suspect that the artist used his rather vivid imagination to create what he thought Richard might look like. The clothing is not dissimilar to the other portraits. The face of this King, however, is much different. The face is rounder, the eyes larger, the nose less pointy, and the chin is less prominent. We would not recognise this gentleman as being Richard at all, without the identification on the painting.

It would be interesting to find an actual portrait painted while Richard was alive, that we could be confident was the real King. Or a portrait of him as a child? That would be remarkable indeed!