Born in England, Thomas Birch became the earliest marine painter specialist in America, and also was noted for landscapes, although they were described by art historian James Flexner has having "never transcended the illustrator's tradition." (187). Many of these landscapes were snowscenes, and several depicted the Hudson River Valley.

Thomas Birch was the son of William Russell Birch, an engraver and painter of enamel miniatures. They immigrated in 1794 to the United States and worked together as William Birch and Son in Philadelphia. They did designing, engraving, and publishing of topographic views of the city, regarded "as some of the finest cityscapes done in American in the late 18th century" (Baigel...