Dr. Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University

Studying available images of Queen Elizabeth and her wardrobe; images likely to be of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; Elizabethan fashion and court history; Lord Burghley's Theobalds house; and more, artist and 2004 Shakespeare student Melissa Deckman of Washington State University painted the piece shown on the front page of this site. Here is the artist at work.

This Hilliard image shows an "unidentified man" from the Elizabethan court in 1588. There are several reasons to suspect that it's Oxford. In any case, this "Shake-speare," or any one of the suspected images of de Vere, is a far cry from the bloated bald Stratford monument Shakespeare, or the "Can-You-Name-Seven-Things-Wrong-With-This-Image?" Droeshout engraving in the First Folio. Shake-speare was hot! No wonder old-guard Senior Professors cling to the Stratford myth; that guy looks more like them.