Author: Burton, Charles
Biography:
BURTON, Charles (fl 1819-42)
An artist and art teacher who describes himself as a "foreigner" and "professor of perspective" in New York City on the title-page of his book. Internal evidence suggests that he arrived about 1817. His name is such a common one that public records are unreliable, but there was a man of that name working as a teacher in New York in 1819. Art history provides a few further details. They indicate that he was born in England about 1783. His brother William Burton was a printer in Fetter Lane; Charles exhibited some church views at the Royal Academy in 1800-2 and was employed as a painter for magic lanterns and transparencies. In the US he lived mainly in New York until 1831 but also painted the Capitol in Washington in 1824. Between 1828 and 1831 he prepared a series of miniature views of New York and Philadelphia which were published in 1831. After 1831 he spent some years in Baltimore MD, painting portraits there and in West Virginia. The last record of him in the US is from Baltimore in 1842. It is possible that he returned to England, where C. Burton exhibited some architectural drawings at the RA in 1845-6. (ancestry.com 12 Aug. 2025; artprice com 12 Aug. 2025) HJ