Shakespeare portraits

This signboard, probably created in the late 1600s to the early 1700s, is based on the popular “Chandos portrait”—the only portrait of Shakespeare that may have been painted from life.

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…

Henry Altemus’ magnificently miniature copy of “The Children’s Shakespeare” by Edith Nesbit is the Folger’s smallest Shakespeare edition. The title page’s portrait of Shakespeare is only six millimeters long. Like the book’s text, it is not discernible to the naked…

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.

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.