Sophocles Portrait Print in a 1493 Album

What it is

This is a woodcut print from an album dated 1493, now held by the Rijksmuseum. It shows a bearded man in a toga, holding a scroll, labelled with the name Sophocles. The print is part of a larger collection of imagined portraits of famous historical figures.

Why it matters

Sophocles lived almost two thousand years before this print was made, so the image is not a real likeness but an imagined one created by later artists who wanted to honour him as a great writer. It shows how people in the Renaissance pictured ancient authors, often using symbols like scrolls to represent their writing.

Look closer

• Why might the artist have shown Sophocles holding a scroll?
• What does this print tell us about how people centuries later wanted to remember ancient writers?
• What is missing from this image that we might want to know about Sophocles as a real person?