SMITH, Charles Hamilton (Dutch, 1776 - 1859).
[African Rhinoceros] Pachydermata R. Africanus Rhinoceros.
Watercolor, pencil and ink on paper.
Initialed lower right: "CHS".
Inscribed lower center: Rhinoceros R. Africanus
16" x 13 1/4" sheet, 22" x 19" framed.

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Charles Hamilton Smith was born at Vrommen-hofen in East Flanders. Having pursued his military studies at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Malines and in Louvain, he volunteered for the British forces, and served in the 8th Light Dragoons. He later went to the West Indies with the British 60th regiment in 1797, and we know that he was engaged in military engineering duties in Curacao in 1808.

Smith's ability to sketch and draw in the field came to the fore during the last phase of the Napoleonic Wars. According to Lord Lynedoch, Smith sketched the frontier near Brussels, and the Duke of Wellington used these drawings and reports when he first visited Waterloo.

Retiring on half-pay in 1820, Smith enjoyed some further thirty-nine years studying natural history. Settling in Plymouth, by continuing to travel extensively, Smith later recorded his visits to no less that thirty-four menageries in his study of natural history. Among these he listed; the Leverian and British Museums, Bullock's, the Missionaries, the India Company's, the Jardin du Roi at Paris, the museums of Munich, Dresden and Berlin, those of Bonn and also of Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore,? (see preface to An epitome of drawings made between the years 1809-1859 by the late Lt. Col. Hamilton Smith, 1860). In this preface Smith also mentions using the collections of Georges and Frederick Cuvier, and in 1827 Smith was partly responsible for "The Class Mammalia" in Cuvier's massive publication The Animal Kingdom. One drawing in this lot is inscribed "F. Cuvier." In particular Smith described the Exeter Change as "the most varied menagerie in Europe" From whence I have derived many sketches taken from living specimens. One of the watercolors here (no.7) is inscribed "Exerter Change."

Smith's watercolors, for example this Rhinoceros, is deliberately set in a fictitious but convincing landscape. Smith wrote of his backgrounds, "similar backscapes have been sketched to them, others taken on the spot where the specimens were found or where it was known to reside."

Little original material from Smith's output survives today. Almost all of Smith's watercolors, pencil drawings and notes were given to the Plymouth Institution (now Athenaeum) after his death.