The Droeshout engraving appears on the title page of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's complete dramatic works, which was published toward the end of 1623, about seven years after the poet's death. It is easily the most famous image of Shakespeare, and perhaps also the closest to the life of the two more-or-less authentic likenesses remaining in existence.
It is named for Martin Droeshout, the 22-year-old engraver who produced it, perhaps from a sketch supplied to him, since it seems improbable he ever met Shakespeare himself.
Nevertheless, no less an authority than fellow poet and dramatist Ben Jonson seems to have thought it well cut, so long as we do not assign too much irony to the poetic epistle he wrote for the page facing the title page on which it appears:
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face, the Print would then surpass
All, that was ever writ in brass.
But, since he cannot, Reader, look
Not on his Picture, but his Book.