1870 Antique Laura Birge Oval Oil Portrait Painting

19th century Victorian oil on canvas portrait painting of Great, Great Grandmother (Elizabeth Craford 1798-1865) by Laura Birge, circa 1870, signed middle left.
Laura C Birge (b.1846 – 1928), was born in Seneca Falls, New York. As a young girl she learned, for several years, to draw with Clara Soule (1834 – 1902). She then went to New York City and studied under William Rimmer (1816-1879), a celebrated artist at the time.
Thereafter she studied in Cincinnati for a time and afterward went to Europe, where she remained for four years, studying oil painting in Munich and Paris. During this continental sojourn she also spent a few months studying watercolors in England.
She returned to the United States in 1876, (1880 census lists her in Dayton) and devoted herself to painting. With her highly regarded European training Birge received more commissions the she could handle and was an important figure in the development of art history in Dayton Ohio. Though a resident of Dayton, her work was mostly for affluent clients in Cleveland, Buffalo, and Chicago.
Upon her passing in 1928 Laura C. Birge’s remains were interred in the beautiful Woodland Cemetery of Dayton.”
34” x 5” x 39” / Sans Frame – 22.5” x 27.5” (Width x Depth x Height)