The Real Billy the Bard?

Is this the first portrait of William Shakespeare and the only one painted during his lifetime?

The world’s foremost expert on Shakespeare, Stanley Wells, supports the claim and the story of the portrait and how it came to be identified is told in The Sunday Times. :

(It) was painted in 1610, six years before the playwright’s death, has been in the possession of the Cobbe family since the early 18th century. It was initially kept at a property in Hampshire but more recently in Hatchlands, the family house in Surrey, which is run by the National Trust. ... For three centuries the family was unsure of the identity of the figure in the portrait. According to Alec Cobbe, an art restorer, at one time it had been thought to be of Sir Walter Raleigh.

More evidence will be presented today ...