illustrations
illustrations.Early 18th-century editions of Shakespeare's plays (such as Nicholas Rowe's, 1709) often included handsome frontispieces. Alexander Pope's edition of 1723, for example, offered George Vertue's celebrated engraved portrait depicting Shakespeare, in a cartouche, wearing Van Dyck dress. A milestone in illustrated versions of Shakespeare, however, came in 1740, with the publication of Lewis Theobald's Works of Shakespeare, expensively illustrated by the French engraver Hubert François Gravelot. In 1744 a comparable text was published with illustrations after designs by Francis Hayman. Illustrations to Shakespeare plays became increasingly sentimental as the century progressed, such as those in the 1785 popular edition commissioned by John Bell. Bell's celebrated editions included stage portraits of contemporary actors ‘in character’ drawn by aspiring artists early in their careers such as John Keys Sherwin and Johann Heinrich Ramberg. The...
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