The Shakespeare funerary monument

The Shakespeare funerary monument is a dedication to William Shakespeare located inside Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-upon-Avon, the congregation in which Shakespeare was baptised and where he was covered in the chancel two days after his death. The landmark, cut in light blue limestone by Gerard Johnson, is mounted on the north mass of the chancel. It highlights a demi-figure of the poet holding a quill pen in one hand and a bit of paper laying on a pad in the other. The style, which was well known from the late 16^th to the mid 17^th century, was most generally used to memorialize divines, scholastics and those callings with demands of learning.

It has been modified ordinarily, and was painted completely white in 1793. This demi-figure is one of the just two portrayals certainly acknowledged as precisely depicting William Shakespeare's physical appearance. The two segments that help the entablatures and emblem over the bust are of dark polished marble. The two putti and the skull are of sandstone, and the capitals and bases of the sections are of gilded sandstone. The architraves, frieze and cornice were initially of red-veined white alabaster, however they were supplanted in 1749 with white marble.