Portraits of Shakespeare

• 1. Definitive Posthumous Images

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  The year 1623 marked the publication of the First Folio, a collection of William Shakespeare's plays that included an engraving by Martin Droeshout on its title page. This image stands as one of only two representations unambiguously identified with the playwright, though both were created after his death in 1616. An introductory poem by Ben Jonson within the same volume suggests the engraving captures a very good likeness of the author. The second definitive image is a half-length bust located in the choir of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. This sculpture must have been erected by 1623 when it was referenced in the introduction to the First Folio. No contemporary physical description of Shakespeare exists to confirm these depictions against reality. Experts and critics continue to argue over whether other paintings from the period truly represent him.

• 2. Contemporary Life Portraits

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  A portrait attributed to John Taylor dates to about 1610 and bears the name Chandos because it once belonged to the Duke of Chandos. In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery published a report by Tarnya Cooper stating this painting holds the only real claim to being done from life. Another candidate emerged later when Stanley Wells and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust announced their belief in 2009 regarding the Cobbe portrait. This painting has remained in the possession of the Cobbe family since the early 18th century and may have originally belonged to Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton. Tarnya Cooper argues that both the Cobbe and Janssen portraits actually depict Thomas Overbury instead. Scientific analysis of the Sanders portrait suggests it might date to Shakespeare's lifetime if true, though scholars question its authenticity due to the subject appearing too young for a thirty-nine-year-old man in 1603.

• 3. Posthumous Memory And Adaptation

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  In the decades following Shakespeare's death artists created portraits based on existing images or living memory of the writer. The Soest portrait was probably painted by Gerard Soest and first described by George Vertue as depicting a man who looked like Shakespeare. It was owned by Thomas Wright of Covent Garden in 1725 before being engraved by John Simon. The Chesterfield portrait dates between 1660 and 1670 and possibly comes from the hand of Pieter Borsseler who worked in England during the second half of the seventeenth century. Its title derives from ownership by the Earl of Chesterfield and is generally assumed to be based on the Chandos portrait. This assumption serves as evidence that the Chandos image was accepted as a depiction of Shakespeare within living memory of the writer. A stylized engraving by William Marshall appeared in John Benson's 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems as a reversed version of the Droeshout image.

• 4. Commercial Fakes And Alterations

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  By the mid-18th century demand for portraits led to several claims regarding surviving seventeenth-century paintings altered to conform more closely to Shakespeare's features. The Janssen portrait was overpainted to recede the hairline and add an inscription with age and date fitting Shakespeare's life before 1770. In 1792 a painting known as the Felton portrait appeared at auction bearing the name of Shakespeare on its back along with initials R.B. thought to belong to Richard Burbage. An Ashbourne portrait identified as Shakespeare in 1847 currently hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library but was later revealed through X-ray examination to be a retouched portrait of Edward de Vere. Restoration work in 1979 uncovered Hugh Hamersley's coat of arms painted over the original sitter. Another example involves the Flower portrait which was shown in 2005 to be a nineteenth-century fake adapted from the engraving where Shakespeare's face had been painted over an authentic sixteenth-century Madonna and child.

• 5. Allegorical And Narrative Depictions

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  Angelica Kauffman created an allegorical work titled The Birth of Shakespeare around 1770 depicting baby Shakespeare surrounded by Fantasy and muses of Tragedy and Comedy. Below this composition sit a scepter, crown, and mask of tragedy portending the child's brilliant future. George Romney painted a similar scene called The Infant Shakespeare attended by Nature and the Passions showing Joy and Sorrow flanking the central figure. Thomas Banks produced another allegory named Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry where symbolic figures laud his creative genius. Artists also began depicting real or imagined scenes from Shakespeare's life during the Victorian era when such images became especially popular. Most frequent was the apocryphal story of young Shakespeare being brought before Sir Thomas Lucy on charges of poaching depicted by several artists. A more respectable patriotic scene showed Shakespeare reading his work to Queen Elizabeth I as painted by John James Chalon.

• 6. Modern Stereotypes And Artistic Reinterpretations

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  By the end of the nineteenth century portraits and statues appeared in numerous contexts while stereotyped features were used in advertisements cartoons shops pub signs and buildings. Between 1970 and 1993 an image of the Westminster Abbey statue appeared on the reverse of British twenty-pound notes. Pablo Picasso created numerous variations on Shakespeare's face reduced to minimal form for the four hundredth anniversary of his birth in 1964. Louis Aragon wrote an essay to accompany these drawings. Graphic designers have played with conventional motifs including Rafał Olbiński's Festival poster from 1994 and Mirko Ilić's illustration in The New York Times from 1996. Milton Glaser created twenty-five Shakespeare Faces as a theater poster in 2003. In 2013 Lego introduced a Shakespeare minifigure while Graham Short produced the smallest portrait in the world of William Shakespeare in 2024 engraved on a speck of gold inside the eye of a needle.