PRIMARY

Exploring engraving with the Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare

Today it is easy to copy a picture - by photography or by printing - but in Tudor times portraits had to be copied by other artists. Sometimes the copies were so good that it was hard to tell which was the original. Sometimes they were not so good!

The cheapest way to make copies of a picture was to ask an engraver to etch (scratch) the image on a metal plate. Then the metal plate could be used quickly and easily for printing as many copies as were needed.

An engraver would start with a copy of a portrait but would need to simplify it as he etched the metal. We think that Martin Droeshout did just that when he made the engraving shown here. He made this some time after Shakespeare had died, and as he had never seen Shakespeare himself, he would have needed a good picture to copy.

Look carefully at the Cobbe portrait and at the copies of it. Do you think the engraving looks similar to any of these?

There were three main differences that the engraver made, probably to bring the portraits up to date - can you see what they are?

He has made Shakespeare very bald, taken away his beard and has changed his lace collar for one that was the very latest fashion! (Or do you think that this just made the job of etching easier?!)

For a full range of resources see: shakespeare.org.uk/primaryresources

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Exploring engraving with the Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare

Activity 1 (challenging but fun!) An effective way for adults and older children to reproduce an etching is to use pen and ink, but for younger children a biro or ballpoint pen gives very good results. The children will need to look very carefully at the Droeshout image to decide how to make their strokes copy the fine lines that have been etched to create the portrait. This technique is known as hatching. Sometimes these fine lines will be parallel, at other times they will cross each other (known as cross-hatching).

Activity 2 (more challenging) Another effective way to copy an etching is to use scraperboard. The boards and tools needed for this can be purchased from most educational suppliers, but any sharp implements will do, especially if they are of different thicknesses. Interesting textures for large areas can also be created by using sandpaper and fine steel wool. The scraperboard technique results in a negative image of the portrait, i.e. of a white etching on a black background.

For a full range of resources see: shakespeare.org.uk/primaryresources

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Exploring engraving with the Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, Martin Droeshout the younger, engraved portrait from the title page of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, 1623 (Collections of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)

For a full range of resources see: shakespeare.org.uk/primaryresources

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