Design for a Shakespeare Memorial

Walter Crane

1880

ink

From the collection of National Gallery of Art

Romanticism Late 19th Century

About this work

This sketch shows a man in a long coat standing on top of a round base. Below him, two smaller figures kneel on either side, reaching toward a large globe. The whole scene is drawn in black ink with soft gray shading on brown paper. The sketch is a design for a memorial to a famous writer, but the artist never finished it as a statue. The figures look like they’re part of a larger story, with the standing man above and the kneeling figures below. Check out the National Gallery of Art, Washington to see this sketch in person.