Martin Droeshout

Imagine a special artist named Martin Droeshout who lived a long, long time ago in England. He was really good at drawing pictures, especially for books! His most famous drawing is the face of William Shakespeare, the super famous writer. This drawing is on the very first collection of Shakespeare's plays ever printed. It's like Martin gave us the first picture of a superhero's face!

Martin was an engraver. That means he didn't just draw with a pencil. He would carve pictures into metal plates. Then, he would put ink on the plate and press paper onto it. This made a copy of his drawing! It was a bit like using a stamp to make lots of the same picture. He used this special way to make the famous picture of Shakespeare's face for his books.

The most important picture Martin ever made is on the cover of Shakespeare's first big book of plays, called the First Folio. It came out in 1623, a long time after Shakespeare had passed away. This picture is how we imagine Shakespeare looks today! Even though some people think the drawing isn't perfect, it's the only picture we have from that time that was made so close to when he was alive.

While the Shakespeare portrait is what Martin is most famous for, he actually made other drawings too. He was an engraver, which was a very important job back then. Artists like Martin helped share stories and ideas by making pictures that could be copied and put into books. His work helped people see the faces of famous writers and understand their stories better.