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"And they modelled it to see that......"
RICHARD ROTH: Professor Eric Rasmussen was searching for a portrait of his favorite playwright when he stumbled on a painting at a British auction. And before art restorer Sophie Plandder began her work, it looked so much like Shakespeare that it set his heart racing.
RICHARD ROTH: Eric Rasmussen: I was thrilled, I,I couldn't,er,I couldn't sleep, er, I, I couldn't eat, er,I put,I put a scan up on my laptop and I would stand gazing at it for hours.
RICHARD ROTH: From the Elizabethan collar to the famous bald head, it seemed a rare find from the 17th century. Until under the restorer's brush, the receding hairline receded, the baldness was a cover-up, added by a more modern artist.
"All those intelligent, all those, all those brains - popping out."
"But he is not bald."
"No."
"And he is not Shakespeare."
"Probably not."
RICHARD ROTH:Rasmussen is not alone in his disappointment or his longing. In the industry called bardology, a proven picture of the playwright's always been elusive/illusive. Now that yearning for an authentic image painted from life is behind the new exhibit at Britain's National Portrait Gallery.
RICHARD ROTH: After more than 3 years of research, a ton of scholarship, and a battery of scientific tests, here they concluded that only one famous painting deserves to be called an authentic Shakespeare portrait.
"There are some fakes here."
"There are some fakes."
RICHARD ROTH: Familiar looking imposters, according to scholar Jonathan Bate, like the so-called Flower Portrait named for an early owner, which tests now show used a type of paint unavailable in Shakespeare's time.
"Is there the real thing? "
"That's the question. I think the Chandos is the real thing."
RICHARD ROTH: So does the gallery. Pleased to have decided that this, the very first painting it acquired 150 years ago, is Shakespeare's only true lifetime portrait. Probably. Authorities admit the evidence isn't airtight, but think it's good enough to fulfill a wish.
SANDY DAIRNE: We can carry on reading the plays and enjoying them on the stage, but I think there's always gonna be that wish to feel that we meet him. We want to meet him as a man; we want to look at him and him look at us.
RICHARD ROTH: What's in a name may be trivial but now there is new inspiration to consider what's in a face.
Richard Roth, CBS News, London.
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