Houbraken, Jacob

Poet Geoffrey Chaucer (around 1343–1400) is best known for writing The Canterbury Tales, the first book published by printing press in England. As early as the sixteenth century, Chaucer stood as a national emblem of the power of the English language. He was widely read amongst the English elite. Portraits of literary figures were a popular subgenre of portraiture, and prints such as this one by Jacobus Houbraken would have been collectible pieces throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.