Benjamin West's birthplace in the Quaker village of Springfield, near Philadelphia, would have been a place of pilgrimage for the younger artist Thomas Sully who, born in England in 1783, had been taken to America in 1792 with his parents. He visited Philadelphia in 1807 and settled there the following year. In 1809 he went to study in London for a year, studying with West, by then President of the Royal Academy. On his return to America, he continued to live in Philadelphia until his death