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Poet, from "Twelve Characters from Shakespeare"

Artist and engraver Etched and published by John Hamilton Mortimer British
Subject William Shakespeare British
May 20, 1775
Not on view
Mortimer admired Salvator Rosa, absorbed aspects of his dramatic style, and sought British equivalents for his subjects. This etching comes from a series that Mortimer devoted to leading Shakespearean characters, based on drawings exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1775. Merging the seventeenth-century genres of the character head and tête d'expression (expressive head), Mortimer's designs also incorporate elements of history painting to convey the Bard's inventive range. Here he represents a poet described by Duke Theseus in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," using the image to suggest that artistic creativity bridges nature and the divine:
"The Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rowling,
Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the Poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
(A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 5, scene 1)

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Poet, from "Twelve Characters from Shakespeare"
  • Series/Portfolio: Twelve Characters from Shakespeare
  • Artist and engraver: Etched and published by John Hamilton Mortimer (British, Eastbourne 1740–1779 London)
  • Subject: William Shakespeare (British, Stratford-upon-Avon 1564–1616 Stratford-upon-Avon)
  • Date: May 20, 1775
  • Medium: Etching
  • Dimensions: Plate: 15 11/16 x 12 11/16 in. (39.9 x 32.2 cm)
    Sheet (edges folded under): 21 5/16 x 13 11/16 in. (54.2 x 34.8 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1968
  • Object Number: 68.510.6
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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