John Quidor was an American painter of historical and literary subjects. He has about 35 known canvases, most of which are based on Washington Irving's stories about Dutch New York, drawing inspiration from the Hudson Valley and from such English painters as William Hogarth, Isaac Cruikshank, James Gillray, Joseph Wright of Derby, and George Morland.
John Quidor. The Money Diggers, 1832. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum
The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1849)
The Devil and Tom Walker (1856)
The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858)
Washington Irving was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.
Daguerreotype of Washington Irving (modern copy by Mathew Brady, original by John Plumbe)
Watercolor of Washington Irving's encounter with George Washington, painted in 1854 by George Bernard Butler Jr.
The fictional "Diedrich Knickerbocker" from the frontispiece of A History of New York, a wash drawing by Felix O. C. Darley
Portrait of Washington Irving by John Wesley Jarvis from 1809
