Object Details
Object Essay
In 1794, Thomas Birch emigrated from England with his father, also an artist, arriving in Philadelphia just as it became the seat of the federal government. Within the decade, Thomas had established an independent practice as a portraitist but soon turned to landscapes and especially seascapes, which became his specialty. His father’s collection of 17th-century Dutch paintings, including works by Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan van Goyen, must have been the source of this fascination. Moreover, Birch’s English parentage undoubtedly spurred his obsessive interest in the naval battles between English and American ships during the War of 1812, which occurred as he was beginning his career as a marine artist. He painted at least fifteen different naval engagements of the war and replicated many.
Seascape probably reflects this preoccupation with patriotic marine images, for one of its prominent details is the stars and stripes flying from the stern of the three-master, the object of sharp attention of two of the boatmen on shore. This motif is comparable to his dazzling display of the flag in the much larger Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie (1814).1Reproduced in Wilmerding Marine Painting, 79, fig. 72. For a summary of Birch’s career, see ibid., 74–83. Whether this was patriotism of convenience or conviction is impossible to say, but the mood of the painting reflects the wave of patriotism that washed over America in the decade following the Treaty of Ghent (signed Christmas Eve, 1814), a sentiment that was the dominant characteristic of that era of good feeling.
The suggestion that the painting shows the Delaware Bay or a spot between Cape Lewes and Cape May is not improbable since Birch often painted in that area, but it is not identifiable. Although he enjoyed including active figures in his paintings, the marked genre quality of the beach scene is somewhat unusual. The five figures, all engaged in specific activities and distinctly characterized, the boat, and the various things strewn on the beach (horseshoe crabs, sea shells, an anchor, two oars, and a creel), which are scrutinized like still-life objects, hold our attention with their suggestion of narrative. Birch creates an elegant design from the sails of the brig in the distance behind this group, and together they make a lively, delightful pictorial unit. As always in Birch’s work, the rolling waves are painted with the fresh transparent colors and fluid brushwork that made him one of the first American masters of seascape.
William Kloss
Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.