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As well as 56,000 biographies the Oxford DNB includes 10,300 portrait images, the largest published collection of British national portraiture. Likenesses date from the first to the twenty-first century and include not just portraits and photographs but also brass rubbings, seals, medals, busts, and illuminated manuscripts.

Here we begin an occasional series highlighting some of the dictionary's most striking images. We start with a selection from the Oxford DNB's coin collection, with a commentary below from Gareth Williams, curator of early medieval coinage at the British Museum.

And at the foot of this page you'll find tips on searching for images in the Oxford DNB.

Offa (d. 796)	Æthelberht (d. 865)	Harold I (d. 1040)	Edmund I (920/21–946)
Magnus Maximus (d. 388)	Æthelberht (779/80–794)	Æthelwulf (d. 858)	Baldred (fl.c. 823–827)
Harthacnut (c. 1018–42)	Edward (c. 962–976)	Constantine III (d. 411)	Eadred (d. 955)
Carausius(d. 293)	Allectus (d. 296)	James I (1394–1437)	William II (c. 1060-1100)

Coins are an important source of evidence for historians, generally combining imagery with short texts. In the context of historical biography the amount of information varies. In some cases, rulers may be known only from their coins. For example, a number of coins survive in the name of 'Eadwald rex'. Eadwald is otherwise unknown, but links between his coins and others show that he must have ruled briefly in East Anglia following the death of Offa of Mercia in AD 796.

In many cases coins provide the only surviving representation of documented historical figures. This may or may not include realistic portraiture. Roman coins had recognizable individual portraits until the end of the fourth century AD, when they were replaced by stylized imperial busts. Realistic portraiture on coins only reappeared with the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. This began in the Italian city states, but was followed in Britain by James III of Scotland and Henry VII of England.

However, even where there is no attempt at realistic portraiture, both images and inscriptions carry important messages about how rulers saw themselves and wished others to see them. A series of British usurpers in the third to fifth centuries used established Roman imperial imagery to promote the idea that they were legitimate Roman emperors. Carausius was quite innovative in his use of coinage as propaganda, and although such later usurpers as Magnus Maximus and Constantine III used only stylized imperial busts the volume and distribution of their coinage provides important evidence of their authority in Spain and Gaul as well as in Britain.

Roman identity remained important in Anglo-Saxon England, and most Anglo-Saxon kings who issued coins with busts chose to portray themselves as Roman emperors. Typically these were derived from diademed busts of the late fourth and fifth centuries, as seen for example on the coinage of Edward (d. 976), but a variety of Roman busts used, going all the way back to Augustus. Some kings went even further in stressing their Roman identity. Æthelberht (d. 794), king of the East Angles, combined a Roman bust with another Roman image of the she-wolf and twins.

Rome did not provide the only model. The biblical kingship of David was also promoted by the church, and one particular issue of Offa of Mercia (normally portrayed as Roman emperor) has unusual and distinctive curly hair with parallels in other contemporary pictorial representations of David.

The emergence of a single kingdom of England led to a new expression of kingship. Contemporary manuscripts show crowned kings, and coins of Æthelstan, Edmund, and Eadred show them wearing crowns like those in the manuscripts, although Edgar reverted to an imperial bust for the first fully national coinage towards the end of his reign. The Danish invader Cnut used both an 'English' crown and a Roman imperial bust to stress his legitimacy. William I and William II pointedly imitated the later coins of Edward the Confessor, who in turn had copied the imperial crown of contemporary German emperors. Though the shape of crown might vary, the crowned bust remained the standard image of kingship in England and Scotland for the rest of the middle ages.

Gareth Williams, curator of early medieval coinage, British Museum

Searching for images in the Oxford DNB

Readers with subscriber access can use Advanced Search: Images to locate the dictionary's 10,300 images by artist, collection, location, and date. By doing so you'll find that the Oxford DNB currently includes:

• 116 portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds
• 309 likenesses from the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
• 13 effigies and memorials in Canterbury Cathedral
• 138 likenesses created in the reign of Elizabeth I

The dictionary's likenesses were selected by curators at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and are drawn from the NPG's own collection and 1500 other sources. There's more on how likenesses are selected in the Introduction to the 2004 edition.

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