Seascape, oil on canvas, 17 3/4" x 25 1/2" image, 21 1/4" x 29 3/4" framed, s.l.r. "T. Birch". Provenance: Long Family Collection, Long Island, NY; May Kelly, circa 1920s (gift from the above); by descent to the present owners (her granddaughter and grandson in-law)
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Born
in London in 1779 and emigrated to the US in 1793. He
moved to Philadelphia in 1800, and became the city’s first
marine and landscape painter. He was the first ship painter in
the US to receive public acceptance. He was the earliest painter
of Nantucket, c. 1810.
During
the war of 1812, he executed a series of historical paintings, representing
the naval victories of the
US. Known best as a marine painter.
After the 1830s, he also specialized in winter landscapes. Designed coins for the US Mint and became highly influential at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.
Member: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
In the collection of: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn Museum; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; Yale University Art Gallery; The Corcoran Gallery of Art; The White House; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Everson Museum of Art; Butler Institute of American Art; and more. |
