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George Washington, 1732-1799
William Birch moved to Philadelphia from London in 1794, where he worked as a printmaker. He also made paintings in enamel on copper, a painstaking but durable medium. The process involves fusing vitreous glazes to a metallic surface using extreme heat. He claimed in his autobiography to have made at least sixty copies of Stuart's portraits of Washington in that medium. Birch also recounted his visit to present an enamel copy to Washington, where "feeling myself awkward I begun the history of Enamel Painting, which by the time I got through he complimented me upon the beauty of my work."
William Russell Birch, after Gilbert Stuart, 1810 |