• Sculptor: Friedrich Beer
  • Date: 1885
  • Medium & size: Bronze bust, over lifesize
  • Location: In front of Washington Irving High School, 40 Irving Place at East 17th Street.
Friedrich Beer, Washington Irving, 1885. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

Irving’s works

“I am always at a loss,” said Irving, “to know how much to believe of my own stories.” His History of New York, published in 1809 under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, fooled many of the people much of the time.

The “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was published in 1820: read the original at Project Gutenberg.

Washington Irving in Sunnyside

The entrance to Irving’s home Sunnyside, in Tarrytown, New York, boasts this lovely sculpture by Daniel Chester French.

Daniel Chester French did many allegorical figures (the Continents at the Customs House, for example), but he was also phenomenally good at portraits: this one, the Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, and the Hunt Memorial, to name a few.

Sunnyside and Sleepy Hollow are an easy train ride from New York.

More

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