American Art Collaborative

The Fink miniature catalog describes this as a bust-length, three-quarter right self-portrait of William Russell Birch. However, a note in the file of a now lost inscription on the back of the frame gives the date of the portrait as 1835, the year after Birch died. In addition the inscription is ambigious. It could be read as suggesting that the portrait was a gift from the artist to his daughter, or that the portrait was painted by Louisa Birch "from her father."