==== Quoting http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa512.htm ====

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)
Bishop Butson
circa 1790
oil on canvas
Gift of George L. Bagby
     
Gilbert Stuart was one of America's first great painters. A native of Rhode Island, he showed talent for drawing at an early age, and he became an apprentice to the Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander, with whom he journeyed to Scotland. Upon his return, Stuart established himself as a portrait painter in the Newport area. The rumblings of war, however, sent Stuart across the ocean again to London, where he received assistance, training and employment from the expatriate American Benjamin West. Stuart eventually was in great demand as a portraitist, but his extravagant lifestyle and mounting debts forced him to move in 1787 to Ireland. He received steady commissions for paintings, including this portrait, done in the fluid style that was a hallmark of Stuart's work, of Christopher Butson, who was elevated to the position of Bishop of Clonfert in 1804. Stuart generally preferred bust-length views, reserving full-length portraits for those of the highest stature.
     
In 1792, again plagued by debt, Stuart sailed for the United States, where he rapidly established his reputation as a portrait painter. His likenesses of George Washington and many other notables of the young republic were held up as standards by which other painters of the day were measured.

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Since Christopher Butson was known to be Dean of Waterford in 1796, when his son attended Oxford, then calling the painting "Bishop Butson" is an anachronistic title if it really was painted about 1790 before the artist came to America. And as the text above notes, Christopher Butson did not become Bishop of Clonfert until 1804. So the title should more rightly be "Dean Butson".

The text is from an exhibition at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio titled "Through American Eyes: Two Centuries of American Art from the Huntington Museum of Art" held September 10 - November 7, 2004. The Huntington Museum of Art is in West Virginia. And the painting can be seen on their web site at http://www.hmoa.org/collections/american-collection