[John Crowther]

Thanks, Ilaria, for the comments, they'll be useful.

Michele, as I mentioned in my original post, this was done from a number of quick gestural sketches and a couple of sittings, then finished without the model. There's no reference photo. I do have a headshot of David, the kind used by actors, but it wasn't a reference and only shows that the likeness is pretty good.

A quick note about the title. I didn't intend that it is literally David playing Hamlet. I like to think of a portrait metaphorically as a "frame" from an imaginary film or play that is the subject's life, with the subject, of course, playing him or herself and me as an out-of-frame character (though it doesn't require the subject to be looking at me). In this case, I see a lot of Hamlet in David, rather than David in the role of Hamlet, if that makes sense.

John C.