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Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1904.59)
Number: 159
Date: 1876/1877
Medium: drypoint
Size: 228 x 155 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 6
Known impressions: 22
Catalogues: K.171; M.168; W.139
Impressions taken from this plate  (22)
Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2 possibly dates from late 1876 to early 1877. On 28 January 1877 Alan Summerly Cole (1846-1934) wrote in his diary: 'Round to see J. who had begun an etching of Irving'. 1 It is actually a drypoint, not an etching.

1: Copy, [1872-1894], GUW #03432.

It is closely related to Whistler's oil painting, Arrangement in Black, No. 3: Sir Henry Irving as Philip II of Spain [y187], painted in 1876. Another version of the same drypoint is Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 1 [158] and other portraits of similar date are Sir Garnet Wolseley [177] and Whistler with the White Lock [162].
In April 1878 H. Stewart Cundell recorded, 'He has also etched his picture of Mr. Irving as Phillip of Spain, which was in the Grosvenor Gallery last year'. 2

2: 'English Etching', The Standard, London, 25 April 1878, p. 2 (GUL PC1/94).