Several portraits of Synge exist. Besides a few drawings of him which are still in private hands, there are these, which have been made public.
An oil painting by Mr. J. B. Yeats. R.H.A. (Municipal Gallery, Dublin.)
A Drawing by Mr. J. B. Yeats. R.H.A. (Samhain. December, 1904.)
A Drawing by Mr. J. B. Yeats. R.H.A. (Frontispiece to Playboy.)
Frontispieces to Vols. I. III. and IV. of the Works. (One of these is a drawing by Mr. James Paterson, the others are photographs.)
Two small but characteristic amateur photographs reproduced in M. Bourgeois's book.
Very few people can read a dead man's character from a portrait. Life is our concern; it was very specially synge's concern. Doubtless he would prefer us not to bother about how he looked, but to think of him as one who
"Held Time's fickle glass his fickle hour"
and then was put back into the earth with the kings and tinkers who made such a pageant in his brain. For the rest, he would say, with Shakespeare,
"My spirit is thine, the better part of me."