Irvine was a delegate to the Continental Congress which met in New York in 1786-88. While there his portrait was painted by Robert Edge Pine, who had come to America from England in 1784. Lambdin, one of the popular portraitists of Philadelphia between ca. 1840 and 1870, based his portrait of Irvine on Pine's late eighteenth-century work. Irvine is shown wearing the uniform of the Continental Army; the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati hangs from his left lapel.