Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2 |  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).