Antique Bronze Ebony Framed Plaque Portrait of Actor Sir Henry Irving 1838-1905

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Stunning Example of a Neoclassical Bronze Portrait Plaque, superbly cast in high relief, complete with its original polished ebony frame … Read more Stunning Example of a Neoclassical Bronze Portrait Plaque, superbly cast in high relief, complete with its original polished ebony frame surround. Depicting a stunning portrait view of Sir Henry Irving. Last half of the Nineteenth Century

Condition: Good condition with nice surface patination, no losses anywhere, marble surround is perfect, wonderful gift. Signed lower right IRVING.

Height: (entire as image one including frame) 8.5″ (21.5cm). Width: 7” (18cm). Depth: 1″ (2.5cm).

Location: Dublin City, Ireland.

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Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), né John Henry Brodribb, was an English actor-manager in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He established himself at the London West End theatre the Lyceum. His long campaign to have theatre recognised as an art of equal importance with music and painting culminated when he was knighted in 1895, the first actor to be thus honoured.

Irving was born in the Wesy Country of England and grew up in straitened circumstances. He was raised by his mother and her sister, who were intensely religious and disapproved of his passion for the theatre. He secured an engagement with a repertory compant in Sunderland in 1856 and learned his craft in a succession of provincial theatres, and occasionally in London, over the next fourteen years. In 1870 he established himself as a West End actor with a leading role in a long-running play at the Vaudeville Theatre. The impresario H. L. Bateman, proprietor of the Lyceum, then recruited him and Irving soon made a sensational impression in The Bells which propelled him into the front rank of English actors. After Bateman died in 1875 his widow took over the company, which she handed over to Irving in 1878. See less