# Washington Irving and his Literary Friends at Sunnyside

- By: Christian Schussele (16 Apr 1824 - 1879)
- By: Felix Octavius Carr Darley (23 Jun 1822 - 27 Mar 1888)
- Date: 1864
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: Sight: 134.6 x 199.4 x 3.8cm (53 x 78 1/2 x 1 1/2")
- Culture: United States
- Credit line: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.82.147)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/19044984245e322a125a814a33450a53.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This imaginary scene shows fifteen celebrated literary figures gathered at the home of Washington Irving, author of such popular tales as “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820). Advertisements published in the New York Times in December 1863 announced the painting’s exhibition at a Manhattan art gallery, where visitors could purchase a fifty-four-page booklet describing the work. “It is, in the truest and completest sense, a National picture,” the anonymous author declared, and its production “will be universally regarded as a National event.”