Stars of the 19th century were often celebrated in paintings, prints and drawings, and in ceramic figurines. From the late 1830s until the early 1900s several Staffordshire factories specialised in moulded earthenware portrait figurines which were decorated by hand and sold cheaply. This represents Othello and Iago in Shakespeare's play Othello.

The source for this figurine was an engraving of a watercolour by S.A. Hart RA which appeared in The National Magazine in 1858, the year Othello was performed at London's Lyceum Theatre by the African American performer Ira Aldridge (1807?-1867) on the 29th and 31st July. Othello was often revived throughout the 19th century with the greatest actors playing Othello or Iago, including John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, Samuel Phelps and Charles Kean. Curiously the most controversial portrayal of Othello was that by Aldridge who first played it at Covent Garden Theatre in 1833, replacing Edmund Kean in the role after Kean's death. Aldridge's Othello at the Lyceum in 1858 was possibly the inspiration for Hart's watercolour, although Charles Dillon also played Othello at the Lyceum that year.