Tracing back Shakespeare’s portrait takes us to an engraving by Martin Droeshout that appears for the first time in a collection published seven years after his death in 1623. Most of the portraits of Shakespeare we now see in our everyday life come from this engraving. But, like Richard Lacayo argues in his article “Is This What Shakespeare Looked Like?”2 engravings must come from somewhere else. This is where “the Cobbe portrait” comes in, an oil portrait from around 1610. It is said to be an authentic life portrait of Shakespeare and the origin of the Martin Droeshout engraving. According to Dr. Stanley Wells the engraving comes from one of the many copies of “the Cobbe portrait” and not the original itself.

Unfortunately there is no evidence to tell the specific reason for which “the Cobbe portrait” was painted. However, there is an inscription in Latin at the top of the painting saying: “Principium amicitias!” which means “alliance of princes”. This is a quote by Horace, in which he addresses a playwright, therefore it serves as further evidence of the identity of the subject (par. 8)3. The Cobbe

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