[ART] John Smith (1652 - 1742) was an English mezzotint engraver. He was born at Daventry, Northamptonshire, about 1652. He was articled to a painter named Tillet in London, and studied mezzotint engraving under Isaac Beckett and Jan Vander Vaart. He became the favourite engraver of Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose paintings he extensively reproduced, and in whose house he is said to have lived for some time. Smith's plates numbered about five hundred, and of those nearly three hundred were portraits of notable men and women of the period between the reigns of Charles II and George II, from pictures by Peter Lely, Kneller, Willem Wissing, Michael Dahl, John Riley, John Closterman, Edward Gibson, Thomas Murray, and others. The remainder are sacred, mythological, and genre subjects after Titian, Correggio, Parmigianino, Carlo Maratti, Godfried Schalcken, Egbert van Heemskerck, Marcellus Laroon and others. Previous to 1700 his plates were mostly published by Edward Cooper, but about that date he established himself as a printseller at the Lyon and Crown in Covent Garden; he published his own works and also reissued many of those by Beckett, Bernard Lens , Williams, and others, retouching them and erasing the original engravers' names. Smith's latest print appears to have been the portrait of the youthful Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, after Joseph Highmore, dated 1729. The bulk of his copperplates eventually came into the hands of John Boydell, who reprinted them in large numbers. RARE original mezzotint by John Smith, image approx. 7-3/4 x 5-3/4" plus VERY SLIM margins. Trimmed right up to the image [not uncommon for old master prints]. He did this mezzotint after a painting by Egbert van Heemskerck. Notice it is signed "I. Smith" - don't be confused by the "I" instead of a "J" because that is how his prints were signed. An "I" inplace of a "J" is also common in old master prints. One of Smith's classic genre subjects. The bulk of his copperplates eventually came into the hands of John Boydell, who reprinted them in large numbers. Because this is printed on wove paper it is likely to have been published by Boydell in the late 18th or early 19th century. VG

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