Portrait of Shakespeare
Martin Droeshout's Engraving of Shakespeare
The only image in this Folio is Shakespeare’s portrait on the title page, which exists in facsimile, captioned: “Martin Droeshout: Sculpsit London”. The portrait is attributed to the engraver Martin Droeshout (1560-c.1642), a Flemish-born English engraver who worked in London with the painter-stainers’ company. The portrait appears in all four editions of the Folio, however it exists in four different versions. As Erin Blake, Curator of Art from the Folger Shakespeare Library explains, “the copper-printed plate that Martin Droeshout had engraved was touched up twice during the printing of the First Folio in 1623, and once more for the Fourth Folio, 62 years later”. The main difference between the first version and the rest is that Droeshout added a shadow to Shakespeare’s neck. Next, in the second touch-up, he added a highlight in each pupil and an extra strand of hair. The final version however, is “heavily re-engraved”. Over the years, the plate’s lines wore out, so in 1685 cross-hatching was used to darken the portrait (Britannica). The portrait we see in the Second Folio corresponds to the 3rd version, after the second touch-up.
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The engraving was famously eulogized on the verses to the left of the title page by none other than Ben Jonson. He wrote “To the Reader”,
This figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but have drawne his Wit
As well in Brass, as he hath hit
His Face: the Print would then surpass
All, that was ever writ in Brass.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Book.
