The Picture (Massinger Play)

The Picture (Massinger Play)

The Picture is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger, and first published in 1630.

The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 8 June 1629; it was acted by the King's Men at both of their theatres, the Globe and the Blackfriars. The play was published in quarto the following year; Massinger dedicated the work to the members of the Inner Temple. The play was popular and highly regarded in its own era; in 1650 Richard Washington wrote an elegy on Massinger in his own copy of the quarto of The Picture.

Massinger's sources for his plot were the 28th novel in Volume 2 of The Palace of Pleasure (1567) by William Painter, and an anonymous English translation of The Theatre of Honour and Knighthood (1623) by André Favyn.