Focus on this artwork and explain the Significance.
The engraving is praised by Shakespeare's friend Ben Jonson in his poem To the Reader printed alongside it, in which he says that it is a good likeness of the poet. He writes that "the graver had a strife / With nature to outdo the life" and that he has "hit his face" accurately. He adds that the engraver could not represent Shakespeare's "wit", for which the viewer will have to read the book.
Because of this testimony to the accuracy of the portrait, commentators have used the Droeshout print as a standard by which to judge other portraits alleged to depict Shakespeare. As the 19th-century artist and writer Abraham Wivell put it,It is, as I may say, the key to unlock and detect almost all the impositions that have, at various times, arrested so much of public attention. It is a witness that can refute all false evidence, and will satisfy every discerner, how to appreciate, how to convict.
In a similar vein, Tarnya Cooper, in 2006, writes that "it is the only portrait that definitely provides us with a reasonable idea of Shakespeare's appearance".
Ben Jonson Abraham Wivell Tarnya Cooper