This signboard, probably created in the late 1600s to the early 1700s, is based on the popular “Chandos portrait” of Shakespeare, the only portrait of Shakespeare that may have been painted from life. Likely painted by John Taylor, an important member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company, the portrait’s name comes from a previous owner. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London when it was founded in 1856. It has inspired numerous copies and variations, a number of which are in the Folger collection today including this striking version.
Painted on an oval mahogany panel, this large portrait of Shakespeare was presented to the Folger in 1975 by Mary Hyde, past president of the Shakespeare Association of America, who had written an article on the work ten years earlier in Shakespeare Quarterly. Discovered by a London dealer in 1962, the antique piece was almost certainly a commercial signboard, as is evidenced by two horizontal braces, a pair of closed iron loops at the back, and a pattern of nail holes that suggests it was once reinforced by metal edging. As Hyde pointed out in her article, the figure’s scale—one and a half times life size —would also make it inappropriate for display inside a house.
The image itself is clearly based on the popular “Chandos portrait” of Shakespeare (the painting is named after a onetime owner, the third duke of Chandos, and is now in the National Gallery in London). Although never definitively linked to the Bard, the Chandos image is an informal and effective portrait that has inspired more copies than any other except the Droeshout engraving from the First Folio.
At first, the signboard was assumed to be the one that hung over the publishing house of Jacob Tonson, which produced Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 edition of Shakespeare’s works, the first critically edited collection of the plays. Two points at least seemed to bear this out: Rowe’s work includes two images of Shakespeare based on the Chandos portrait, and Tonson subsequently named his place of business the Shakespeare’s Head. But there are many other possibilities.
By the late 1600s to the early 1700s, when the signboard was probably created, Shakespeare had become a common motif for the signs outside English inns, taverns, and even other publishing houses.
The Shakespeare signboard is among numerous images of the Bard that enliven spaces at the Folger. Countless other pictures of Shakespeare may be found in sculptures, engravings, drawings, porcelains, and even comic books and films within the library’s vast collection of Shakespeareana.
Keep exploring
Portraits of Shakespeare
There’s no doubt you’ve seen images of Shakespeare. You imagine that you have a pretty good idea of what Shakespeare looked like. Scholar Katherine Duncan-Jones invites you to question your assumptions and take a new look.
Which Shakespeare portraits are legitimate?
Every few years it seems, a newly discovered portrait of Shakespeare emerges, only to be discredited after the media maelstrom. But it points to a keen public interest in knowing what Shakespeare looked like, to put a face to a name with which we are so intimately familiar.
Five Faces of Shakespeare
Among the many treasures of the Folger is a lavish “Cosway binding” that includes five unique miniatures by a 20th-century British artist, “Miss C. B. Currie,” based on the images from the book itself. One of the oddest to modern…
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