ABOUT THIS COLLECTION  
As Shakespearean actors grew in renown, so did demand for them to be immortalized in oils. David Garrick took the London stage by storm in the 1740s with his performances of Richard III and King Lear, which resulted in many Garrick paintings. From there, Shakespeare’s influence on art yielded thousands of works, either treating the plays or representing actors in character. Innumerable prints circulated, along with illustrated editions of the plays in several languages. Because Shakespeare’s scripts are short on stage directions and scene-setting, artists have had the freedom to imagine their own visual interpretations of the plays, as seen in these eight examples.
 
COLLECTION DETAILS
Series title: Shakespeare in Art
Series size: 8 artworks
Edition: Limited edition of 1000
Proof of Ownership: Certification on the Ethereum blockchain under the ERC1155 protocol. Each artwork is delivered privately and directly to collectors as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that guarrante proof of ownership.
Format: Pieces consist of PNG files sized 2160x3840 pixels - 150 dpi.
Medium: Drawing, oil on canvas, color on paper, watercolor and graphite on paper, engraving.
Artwork materials:  Beige wove paper, watercolour, canvas, others.
Contract Address: 0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e
ID: 2749212597480566...
 
ABOUT THE ARTIST
This collection offers a diversity of artistic takes on Shakespeare’s characters and scenes. Among them is William Blake (1757-1827), who interpreted the Bard in poetry as well as in watercolors and sketches that capture scenes and images from the plays with idiosyncratic passion. In the painting usually called “A Moor,” generally attributed to James Northcote (1746–1831), we see the African American actor Ira Aldridge as Othello, one of the first black actors to play Shakespeare. Although it doesn’t capture an identifiable moment in the play, Northcote’s work has all the intensity of Shakespeare’s study of tragic jealousy. Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) created wild, poetic images centered on Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Falstaff. As the Tate Museum put it: “Fuseli created brilliantly imaginative renderings of the plays that blend icy precision and malevolent fantasy.”
COLLECTION CREDITS
Historical curatorship: HARI - Historical Art Research Institute (HARI Editions)
Artwork: William Blake, Henry Fuseli, George Cruikshank, Robert Smirke, and Franz Marc
Year of original publication: 1773-1917
Post-production: HARI - Historical Art Research Institute (HARI Editions)
Digital art supervisor: Marie-Lou Desmeules
Editorial: Braden Phillips
Historical research: Evangelos Rosios, Braden Phillips
Executive production: Victor Zabrockis
 
RIGHTS OVERVIEW
Source of artwork: Wikimedia Commons / Yale Center for British Art
Underlying work rights: PD Worldwide
Digital copyrights: Various