William Shakespeare

In a series devoted to poets, the engraver and antiquary Vertue based this image on the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, a painting with a good claim to be a lifetime representation, once owned by the Duke of Chandos, at now the National Portrait Gallery, London. The sitter’s doublet has here been enhanced with small darts, and the image set within a simulated stone frame crowned with laurels over a pedestal inscribed with an ode. The engraver researched his subjects carefully and produced hundreds of prints representing people who contributed to British history and culture.

Credit: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917