A Tudor portrait believed to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello is currently touring the United States as part of a major exhibition.
‘Abd al-Wāḥid bin Masʿūd bin Muḥammad binʿAnūrī, Moroccan Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I (1600) can usually be seen at the University’s Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. The portrait depicts the visit of the Ambassador – also known as Al-Annuri – to London and the court of Elizabeth I in 1600–1601. Al-Annuri’s mission was to promote the establishment of an Anglo-Moroccan alliance between Protestant Tudors and Muslim Morocco against their common enemy at that time, Catholic Spain.
It is believed that Othello, written within months of Al-Annuri’s visit, was inspired by the Ambassador. Al-Annuri sat for the painting while he was in London and it is thought to be the earliest painting in England that depicts a Muslim.
The painting has now been loaned to The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England, a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York until January 2023, before touring to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, in the spring, and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Legion Park, from June to September.
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