Martin Droeshout (/ˈdruːʃaʊt/; April 1601 – c. 1650) was an English engraver of Flemish descent, who is best known as illustrator of the title portrait for William Shakespeare's collected works, the First Folio of 1623, edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell, fellow actors of the Bard. Nevertheless, Droeshout produced other more ambitious designs in his career.
Droeshout's artistic abilities are typically regarded as limited. The Shakespeare portrait shares many clumsy features with Droeshout's work as a whole. Benjamin Roland Lewis notes that "virtually all of Droeshout's work shows the same artistic defects. He was an engraver after the conventional manner, and not a creative artist."[1]