Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt (1757-1847), Archbishop of York

Phillips's portrait of Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York from 1819 depicts one of the most senior figures in the Church of England hierarchy—the Archbishop of York being the second highest ecclesiastical office in England after Canterbury. Venables-Vernon-Harcourt's long archiepiscopate from 1807 to 1847 spanned one of the most turbulent periods in Anglican history, encompassing Catholic emancipation, the Reform Act crisis, and the early Oxford Movement. Phillips's ecclesiastical portraiture served the institutional documentation function essential to the Church's maintenance of its visual historical record, and his Archbishop of York portrait would have been displayed in the official rooms of the archiepiscopal palace at Bishopthorpe.

The archiepiscopal portrait presents Harcourt in the vestments and regalia of his office, rendered with the attention to liturgical detail such subjects demanded. Phillips handles the rich fabrics of ecclesiastical dress with professional competence. The face conveys the authority and spiritual gravity expected of a prince of the church.