William Shakespeare engraving after Ozias Humphry's drawing

What it is

This engraving, signed 'A. Weger sculp.', reproduces a drawing made by the artist Ozias Humphry in 1783. Humphry's drawing was itself a copy of the so-called Chandos portrait, a well-known painted image of Shakespeare. The caption notes the drawing was made for a man named Malone. The print is held by the Catholic University of Leuven.

Why it matters

This object shows a chain of copying: an original painted portrait (the Chandos picture), copied by Humphry as a drawing in 1783, then copied again as a printed engraving. Each step was made long after Shakespeare's lifetime by artists who never saw him. It shows how people in the 1700s and after tried to fix an 'official' face for Shakespeare, reusing and reworking existing images rather than creating new evidence of his appearance.

Look closer

• Why do you think so many artists copied the same portrait of Shakespeare instead of creating new images?
• What does the long chain of copies (painting to drawing to engraving) tell you about how reliable this likeness might be?
• What questions would you want to ask about the original Chandos portrait that this image doesn't answer?