Who engraved the portrait of Shakespeare on the First Folio title page?

Martin Droeshout engraved Shakespeare’s portrait for the title page of the First Folio.

The image, now called the Droeshout portrait or Droeshout engraving, appeared in the collection of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. It is one of only two images generally regarded as definitively representing Shakespeare, the other being his funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The print is signed “Martin Droeshout,” but scholars have debated which of two artists with that name made it. The traditional and still widely accepted attribution is to Martin Droeshout the Younger, who was probably about 21 when the commission was made. He may have worked from an earlier drawing or painting because Shakespeare had died when Droeshout was still a teenager.

The portrait has two principal states. The rare first state has lighter shading, while the second state—used in most surviving First Folios—has heavier shadows and small changes to the jaw and moustache. Ben Jonson praised the likeness in a poem printed beside it, although later viewers often criticized the engraving’s stiff style.