Shakespeare's Head Emblem

Jacob Tonson, the Elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jacob Tonson the Elder obtained publication rights to Shakespeare's works and issued an important edition of the plays in 1709. From about 1700, he worked in partnership with his nephew, Jacob Tonson the Younger, and they moved into a shop in the Strand known as Shakespeare's Head in 1710. This small woodcut image of the Bard, clipped from a Tonson title page, was their signature emblem.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art