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).