The University of Birmingham Shakespeare Institute was founded in 1951 by the theatre historian Allardyce Nicoll and forms an internationally important centre for the study of Shakespeare and Early Modern drama, literature and culture. It is housed in the fine seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mason Croft buildings that were the home to novelist Marie Corelli until 1924.
The paintings on display at University of Birmingham Shakespeare Institute are largely related to Shakespeare’s life and times, or his plays. This includes the portrait of 'Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun (b.1558), Moorish Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I' (1600), considered to be the inspiration for Othello.