Portrait of George Sirian
This oil on canvas portrait by the prominent New York artist Charles Cromwell Ingham depicts a young George Ipsara Sirian, who served as a boy aboard USS Constitution. Orphaned as a boy in 1824 while escaping war in his home of Psara, Greece, the young refugee joined USS Constitution‘s crew in May of 1827. He served first with the rank of boy, and then ordinary seaman, until the ship sailed into Boston Harbor on July 4, 1828. While on Constitution, Sirian was aided by Lieutenant Robert Randolph, who took the boy under his wing and later sponsored his education in naval gunnery. This portrait was commissioned by Randolph and painted in 1828.
Creator
Charles Cromwell Ingham
Date Created
1828
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
[H]33 in. [W]27 3/4 in.
Catalog Number
2326.1
Credit Line
USS Constitution Museum Collection. Gift of the estate of George Sirian’s great-grandson, James Edward Eller, Jr., and his wife, Teresa Jones Eller.
Terms of Use
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
