Still-life with roses and other flowers
| Reference: | S44004 |
| Author | John Warwick SMITH |
| Year: | 1691 ca. |
| Measures: | 185 x 270 mm |
€525.00
| Reference: | S44004 |
| Author | John Warwick SMITH |
| Year: | 1691 ca. |
| Measures: | 185 x 270 mm |
€525.00
Description
Table-top still-life with roses and other flowers in a wide, rounded glass vase, lit from the left; after Monnoyer.
Mezzotint, circa 1691, lettered below image with 'J Baptiste Monnoyer pinxit' and 'J Smith fecit & excudit.'
Example of the second state of three, before the plate reworked.
A good impression on laid paper, with very thin margins, an oblique paper crease at upper left corner, otherwise good condition.
Nagler gives the date 1691 for this plate.
John Smith (1652-1743) was a gifted and ambitious printmaker and publisher whose long career began in the reign of Charles II and closed after the accession of George II. He was born in Northamptonshire and worked in London, specializing in the relatively new technique of mezzotint printing. Between 1683 and 1729 he produced over three hundred prints. Trained as a printmaker he was able to retain a controlling hand when, in the early 1690s, he turned from pure printmaking to printmaking and publishing. The refinement and 'modernity' of his prints brought him fame and then material prosperity and Smith's career, largely independent of interference from outside publishers, must have been an inspiration to William Hogarth (1697-1764) and the next generation of printmakers. Smith learnt the technique of mezzotinting from the printmaker Isaac Beckett (c.1653-88) and the Dutch artist Jan Van der Vaart (1653-1727). Smith also reproduced works of a number of contemporary British and foreign artists.
According to the curator of The British Museum this is the list of states:
(i) lettered 'J Baptiste Monnoyer pinxit'
(ii) lettered 'J Baptiste Monnoyer pinxit // J Smith fecit & excudit.'
(iii) lettering as above; plate reworked.).
The work is very rare; the other known impressions are: London BM, 1876,1111.21 (ii); Paris BN (i, ii); Chatsworth (ii, 2 impressions); Cambridge Fitzwilliam (ii); Glasgow Hunterian (ii); Haddington albums (ii); London NPG (ii); New York PL (Boydell reissue; Stuart Collection 226); Oxford Christ Church (ii); Amsterdam RPK (ii); London V&A (ii); CLB (3 impressions, ii).
Collection mark of Giuseppe Storck (Lugt 2291).
Bibliografia
Antony Griffiths, Early Mezzotint Publishing in England I John Smith, 1652-1743, in “Print Quarterly”, VI 1989 pp. 243-57; Wessely, John Smith: Verzeichniss seiner schabkunstblätter, n. 482; Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto portraits from the introduction of the art to the early part of the present century (undescribed); Nagler, Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon n. 500.
John Warwick SMITH (1749 - 1831)
|
John "Warwick" Smith (26 July 1749 – 22 March 1831) was a British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator. Smith was born at Irthington, near Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a gardener to the Gilpin family, and educated at St. Bees. The fortunate social connection allowed him to study art under the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin.
Becoming known as a skilful topographical draughtsman, he was employed on Samuel Middiman's Select Views in Great Britain, and obtained the patronage of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, which enabled him to travel to Italy between 1776 and 1781. While there he met other British artists such as Francis Towne, Thomas Hearne and William Pars. He came to be known as "Warwick" or "Italian" Smith. In his subsequent works, which were largely views in Italy, he gradually abandoned the simple tinting to which watercolour work had previously been limited for a more effective mode of colouring, the novelty and beauty of which was much admired.
He returned to England in 1781 in the company of Francis Towne, travelling through the Italian lakes and Switzerland. He settled in Warwick, making frequent visits to Wales from 1784; he also toured the Lake District in the late 1780s and early 1790s. In 1783 he married Elizabeth Gerrard – still a minor – at St Mary's church, Warwick. He visited Italy again in 1785–6, this time in the company of Lord Warwick. Lord Warwick acquired a large collection of his work, which was eventually dispersed at an auction in 1936.
On one of his tours of Wales, at some time after 1788, Smith was accompanied by Lord Warwick's brother, Robert Fulke Greville, and the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson. They spent a considerable time at Hafod, near Aberystwyth, the home of the bibliophile Thomas Johnes. Hafod was destroyed by fire in 1807, and three years later Sir J. E. Smith published A Tour to Hafod, illustrated with fifteen aquatints by J. G. Stadler from watercolours, by " Warwick " Smith, possibly made in the course of the visit with Ibbetson.
Other books illustrated with engravings after works by Smith include Select Views in Italy (1792–6); Views of the Lakes of Cumberland, with twenty aquatints by James Merigot (1791–5); William Byrne's Britannia Depicta and William Sotheby's Tour through Wales (1794). This last book was subtitled "Odes and other Poems. With Engravings from Drawings taken on the Spot by J. Smith". In the preface, Sotheby wrote "the author of the following Poems thinks proper to signify, that the present edition is published solely for the emolument of the artist, who has stamped a value on the descriptive parts of the Welsh Tour, by the embellishments of his accurate and masterly pencil". The plates were etched in aquatint by Samuel Alken. Smith moved to London in 1807. In that year he began exhibiting with Watercolour Society, which he had joined two years before. He remained a major contributor to its exhibitions until 1823, when he resigned his membership. He was elected president of the society in 1814, 1817, and 1818, secretary in 1816, and treasurer in 1819, 1821, and 1822. Smith died in Middlesex Place, London, on 22 March 1831, and was interred in the St George's burial-ground in the Uxbridge Road.
|
John Warwick SMITH (1749 - 1831)
|
John "Warwick" Smith (26 July 1749 – 22 March 1831) was a British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator. Smith was born at Irthington, near Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a gardener to the Gilpin family, and educated at St. Bees. The fortunate social connection allowed him to study art under the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin.
Becoming known as a skilful topographical draughtsman, he was employed on Samuel Middiman's Select Views in Great Britain, and obtained the patronage of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, which enabled him to travel to Italy between 1776 and 1781. While there he met other British artists such as Francis Towne, Thomas Hearne and William Pars. He came to be known as "Warwick" or "Italian" Smith. In his subsequent works, which were largely views in Italy, he gradually abandoned the simple tinting to which watercolour work had previously been limited for a more effective mode of colouring, the novelty and beauty of which was much admired.
He returned to England in 1781 in the company of Francis Towne, travelling through the Italian lakes and Switzerland. He settled in Warwick, making frequent visits to Wales from 1784; he also toured the Lake District in the late 1780s and early 1790s. In 1783 he married Elizabeth Gerrard – still a minor – at St Mary's church, Warwick. He visited Italy again in 1785–6, this time in the company of Lord Warwick. Lord Warwick acquired a large collection of his work, which was eventually dispersed at an auction in 1936.
On one of his tours of Wales, at some time after 1788, Smith was accompanied by Lord Warwick's brother, Robert Fulke Greville, and the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson. They spent a considerable time at Hafod, near Aberystwyth, the home of the bibliophile Thomas Johnes. Hafod was destroyed by fire in 1807, and three years later Sir J. E. Smith published A Tour to Hafod, illustrated with fifteen aquatints by J. G. Stadler from watercolours, by " Warwick " Smith, possibly made in the course of the visit with Ibbetson.
Other books illustrated with engravings after works by Smith include Select Views in Italy (1792–6); Views of the Lakes of Cumberland, with twenty aquatints by James Merigot (1791–5); William Byrne's Britannia Depicta and William Sotheby's Tour through Wales (1794). This last book was subtitled "Odes and other Poems. With Engravings from Drawings taken on the Spot by J. Smith". In the preface, Sotheby wrote "the author of the following Poems thinks proper to signify, that the present edition is published solely for the emolument of the artist, who has stamped a value on the descriptive parts of the Welsh Tour, by the embellishments of his accurate and masterly pencil". The plates were etched in aquatint by Samuel Alken. Smith moved to London in 1807. In that year he began exhibiting with Watercolour Society, which he had joined two years before. He remained a major contributor to its exhibitions until 1823, when he resigned his membership. He was elected president of the society in 1814, 1817, and 1818, secretary in 1816, and treasurer in 1819, 1821, and 1822. Smith died in Middlesex Place, London, on 22 March 1831, and was interred in the St George's burial-ground in the Uxbridge Road.
|