As a recently discovered painting is released FIONA GRIFFITHS tells of the mystery surrounding the Earl of Southampton and the sexuality of William Shakespeare

THIS newly found portrait has thrust the little-known third Earl of Southampton into the 21st century media spotlight.

The never-seen-before oil painting of the 16th century aristocrat - with flowing tresses and wearing red lipstick and double earring - has fuelled speculation over the sexuality of playwright William Shakespeare.

For centuries the question over whether the Bard - author of such classics as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet - was a homosexual has been debated by scholars, while the picture was thought to have been of a little-known noblewoman.

But now it has been confirmed as a portrait of the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, dating to the 1590s when Shakespeare was living in his household and writing sonnets to the "master-mistress of my passion".

For 300 years the painting has belonged to the Cobbe family, whose connections with the Southamptons have been traced back to pre-Elizabethan times.

Although an inscription marks it as being "Lady Norton, daughter of the Bishop of Winton", the portrait's current owner Alec Cobbe compared it to other family pictures and realised a striking resemblance to the earl.

But the question of how the portrait came into the Cobbe family's possession is also intriguing.

Alec Cobbe originally believed the portrait was presented by the earl to his contemporary and Hampshire neighbour Thomas Cobbe (1573-1638), who had a company of 100 foot-soldiers on his estates next to the ancestral Southampton seat of Titchfield.

But he now believes the painting was transferred through a different ancestral connection.

The Lady Norton identified in the inscription on the picture was originally thought to have been Lady Anne Norton, daughter of Thomas Bilson, the Bishop of Winchester.

But the Lady Norton in question has now been established as Lady Elizabeth Norton, great-granddaughter of the third earl.

She inherited the picture from her grandfather the fourth earl - who had no heir - and passed it on in the early 18th century to the Cobbe children of her kinswoman, Honor Norton.