Thomas Birch

Thomas Birch, by Unknown artist, circa 1735 -NPG 522 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Thomas Birch

by Unknown artist
circa 1735
35 3/4 in. x 27 3/4 in. (908 mm x 705 mm)
NPG 522

This portraitback to top

NPG 522 is related to the much livelier painted oval, without hands, bequeathed by the sitter to the British Museum, [1] and datable from his will to 1735.

Footnotesback to top

1) Synopsis or Guide Book to the British Museum, Part VI, Portraits, 1843 (26); G. P. Harding, List of Portraits ... in Various Mansions of the United Kingdom ... MS, c.1804, NPG archives, II, p 233.

Physical descriptionback to top

Pale blue eyes, strongly marked eyebrows, fresh complexion, grey wig; black gown with white bands, white shirt sleeves just visible at wrists, a small ring on fifth finger of his left hand; two volumes on table with dark green table-cloth, the smaller with traces of lettering on the spine; dark brown background; lit from the right.

Conservationback to top

Surface cleaned and varnished, 1879; lined, cleaned and varnished, 1895.

Provenanceback to top

Transferred, 1879, from the British Museum; unknown before 1838, date of the first issued list of British Museum portraits. [1] It may well have been there much earlier.

1) Synopsis or Guide Book to the British Museum, Part VI, Portraits, 1843 (46).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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