Drawing

Watercolour drawing by L.J. Binns, showing the actor/ manager Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) as Richard III. Undated.

Henry Irving first played the role of Richard III in January 1877. He played him as a blustering bully or, as Clement Scott described it: 'a truculent tyrant, who stamped about the stage in scarlet doublet and flapping russet boots, and black ringlet wig and bushy eyebrows, supposed to symbolize in their hue the darkness of his deeds of villainy'. Scott thought his Richard was Irving's greatest triumph as an actor: 'intelligent, carefully wrought and convincing'.

This image strongly resembles sketches that were made when Irving first appeared as Richard III, and probably pre-dates the revival of the play at the Lyceum Theatre in 1896.