Newly discovered portrait may depict ‘fair youth’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets

Earl of Southampton may have given writer the miniature by Nicholas Hilliard, which has defaced heart on its reverse

The discovery of a previously unknown portrait miniature by one of Elizabethan England’s greatest artists would be significant enough. But a work by Nicholas Hilliard that has come to light is all the more exciting because it has a possible link to William Shakespeare, and a 400-year-old enigma of a defaced red heart on its reverse, suggesting a love scorned.

Hilliard was Queen Elizabeth I’s official limner, or miniature painter. His exquisite portraits, small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand, are among the most revered masterpieces of 16th-century British and European art.