Washington Irving is portrayed in a large-format three-quarter bust CDV published by E. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York, from a photographic negative by Brady's National Portrait Gallery, showing the American author in his final years in a dark double-breasted frock coat with wide lapels and a large white cravat knotted at the throat of a high collar. Irving faces the camera in a slight three-quarter turn, his face full and genial with close-cropped graying hair, wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and an expression of composed benevolence. The large format of the card and the soft tonal quality of the print give the portrait a stately presence.

The E. Anthony publishing house at 501 Broadway and Brady's National Portrait Gallery collaborated to produce one of the most extensive commercially distributed portrait CDV series in American photographic history, and the Washington Irving portrait was among the most sought-after subjects in that series. The reverse bears a penciled inscription reading Washington Irving.

Washington Irving (1783–1859) was the first American author to achieve international literary fame, celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic for The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819–1820), which contains Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, stories that entered permanently into American cultural mythology. He also wrote biographies of Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Mahomet, and served as U.S. Minister to Spain from 1842 to 1845. His career bridged the founding generation and the American Renaissance, and his genteel, humorous prose style established a model for American literary fiction.

The reverse bears a penciled inscription reading Washington Irving with the E. Anthony publisher's imprint from Brady's National Portrait Gallery and dealer code 10/10/10 / LOBOGZ / Eb.