Martin Droeshout ( ; April 1601 – ) was an English
engraver of
Flemish descent, who is best known as illustrator of the
title portrait for
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's collected works, the
First Folio
''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...
of 1623, edited by
John Heminges
John Heminges (bapt. 25 November 1566 – 10 October 1630) was an English actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. Along with Henry Condell, he was an editor of the First Folio, the collected plays of Sha ...
and
Henry Condell
Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the c ...
, fellow actors of the Bard. Nevertheless, Droeshout produced other more ambitious designs in his career.
Droeshout's artistic abilities are typically regarded as limited. The Shakespeare portrait shares many clumsy features with Droeshout's work as a whole. Benjamin Roland Lewis notes that "virtually all of Droeshout's work shows the same artistic defects. He was an engraver after the conventional manner, and not a creative artist."
Life
Droeshout was a member of a Flemish family of engravers who had migrated to England to avoid persecution for their Protestant beliefs. His father, Michael Droeshout, was a well established engraver, and his older brother, John, was also a member of the profession. His mother, Dominique Verrike, was his father's second wife. His uncle, also called Martin Droeshout (1560s- ), was an established painter. No direct documentation survives about the life of Droeshout beyond the record of his baptism.
Because of the multiple family members, including his uncle with the same name, it is difficult to separate out the younger Martin's biography from surviving information. There is little doubt that a number of engravings were made by the same individual, on stylistic grounds and the similarities of the signatures and monograms used.
Though Droeshout's engraving of Shakespeare is his earliest dated work, there is reason to believe he was already an established engraver, possibly having already produced the allegorical print ''
The Spiritual Warfare''. He made at least twenty four engravings in London between 1623 and 1632. These included portraits and more complex allegorical works, the most elaborate of which was ''Doctor Panurgus'', an adaptation of an earlier engraving by
Matthaeus Greuter.
Ever since the identification of the surviving records of the Droeshout family, there has been uncertainty about whether "Martin Droeshout" the engraver was the brother or the son of Michael Droeshout, though
Lionel Cust in the original ''
Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' asserted what became the majority view, that the younger Martin Droeshout was the more likely candidate. In 1991 historian Mary Edmund argued that his uncle, Martin Droeshout the Elder, may have been both a painter and engraver, and that there was no evidence that the younger Droeshout ever worked as an engraver at all. She stated that the Droeshout ''oeuvre'' should all be attributed to the elder Martin. Her views were asserted in the new ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...
''. More recent research by
June Schlueter reaffirms the traditional attribution of the engravings to the younger Droeshout.
Some time between 1632 and 1635 Droeshout emigrated to Spain, settling in Madrid. This is known because he produced a number of signed engravings there from 1635 to 1640. Art historian Christiaan Schuckman believes that Droeshout's move to Spain must have been caused by, or led to, a conversion to Catholicism, as many of these works depict Catholic saints and use Catholic symbolism. Martin's namesake, Martin the Elder, is known to have remained in London and was a staunch member of the local Dutch Protestant community throughout his life.
While in Spain Droeshout also seems to have anglicised his name to "Droeswoode" ("hout" being Dutch for "wood"), possibly because of negative attitudes to the Dutch in Spain at the time. There are no known records of Droeshout after 1640. Martin is not mentioned in his brother's will, dated 1651, which may mean that he was dead by this date, or that his family had severed links with him due to his Catholicism.
Works
Shakespeare

Droeshout would have been beginning his career as an engraver when he was commissioned to create the portrait of Shakespeare, who had died when Martin was fifteen years old. He was 21 when he received the commission. The engraving is probably based on a pre-existing painting or drawing. Since Martin's uncle of the same name was an established painter, it was suggested by
E. A. J. Honigmann that the elder Martin may have made the original image, which could explain why his young relation was given the commission for the engraving.
Tarnya Cooper argues that the poor drawing and modelling of the doublet and collar suggests that Droeshout was copying a lost drawing or painting that only depicted Shakespeare's head and shoulders. The body was added by the engraver himself, as was common practice.
Other English prints
Droeshout later created portrait engravings depicting
John Foxe
John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587) was an English clergyman, theologian, and historian, notable for his martyrology '' Foxe's Book of Martyrs'', telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of En ...
,
Gustavus Adolphus
Gustavus Adolphus (9 December N.S 19 December">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">N.S 19 December15946 November Old Style and New Style dates">N.S 16 November] 1632), also known in English as ...
,
John Donne
John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...
,
John Howson,
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham ( ; 20 August 1592 – 23 August 1628), was an English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. He was a favourite and self-described "lover" of King James VI and I. Buckingham remained at the heigh ...
and other notables.
He also created more ambitious
allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...
,
mythical
Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
and
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
designs. These included ''
The Spiritual Warfare'', engraved around the same time as the Shakespeare image. This depicts the devil's army besieging a stronghold held by a "Christian Soldier bold" guarded by figures representing the Christian virtues. It has been proposed that this design may have influenced
John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; 1628 – 31 August 1688) was an English writer and preacher. He is best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim' ...
to write ''
The Holy War''. It appears to have been reprinted in 1697 in the wake of the success of Bunyan's books.
Droeshout created an illustration depicting the suicide of
Dido
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (located ...
which functioned as a frontispiece to
Robert Stapylton
Sir Robert Stapylton or Stapleton (died 1669) was an English courtier, dramatic poet and translator.
Life
Stapylton was the third son of Richard Stapleton of Carlton, Selby, Carlton by Snaith, Yorkshire, by Elizabeth Pierrepont, Elizabeth, dau ...
's verse translation of the fourth book of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. Among his more complex works are several engraved plates for
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a ...
's ''The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels'', for which Droeshout was one of five engravers who created plates.
Droeshout's most complex independent print is "Doctor Panurgus", an allegory of the follies of modern life, depicting figures representing Country, Town and Court life being treated by the doctor. The design "has a complicated ancestry", being an adaptation of an earlier print by Greuter, which itself drew on
emblem book
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Emblem books are collection ...
designs. Droeshout, or perhaps an unknown person who designed it, seems to have made a number of specific elaborations of the image, including extensive text, adding extra characters and English and Latin phrases, notably verses explaining how the doctor is purging the three figures of their respective moral illnesses. He pours "Wisdome and Understanding" down the throat of an ignorant rustic and smokes the brain of the "gallant" (courtier) in an oven to burn away the vanity in it (represented by various images going up in smoke). Two other figures wait to have their own brains smoked. Inset are other designs referring to the religious controversy of the era over
pluralism. The whole is filled with boxed passages of satirical moral verse of unknown authorship.
Spanish prints
Droeshout's ten known Spanish engravings are all on subjects with distinctly Catholic significance, differing dramatically in that respect to works he had been producing in Britain up to 1632, one of the last of which was an allegory of the theology of presbyterian Puritan
Alexander Henderson. Stylistically the engravings remain very similar. The portrait of Francisco de la Peña is similar in its modelling and the drawing of head-shape to the Shakespeare print. His earliest Spanish work depicted the coat of arms of leading Counter-Reformation Spanish statesman
Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares
Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, 1st Duke of Sanlúcar, 3rd Count of Olivares, , known as the Count-Duke of Olivares (taken by joining both Count of Olivares, his countship and Duke of Sanlúcar la Mayor, subsequent dukedom) (6 January 1587 – 2 ...
. His most explicitly Catholic design depicts the "Church as Warrior stamping out Heresy, Error and Temerity", a frontispiece to the ''
Novissimus Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum Index''.
Notes and references
Notes
References
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External links
"Website Comparing the Three most likely Shakespeare Portraits"Works by Martin Droeshout the Younger at the National Portrait Gallery, London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Droeshout, Martin
1601 births
1650 deaths
English engravers
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism