Saturday, 29 June 2024

John Thomas Smith The Illustrated Hogarth, 1817.




 John Thomas Smith. (1766 - 1833).

 The (Unpublished) Illustrated Life of Hogarth, 1817.

see my posts

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/06/john-thomas-smith-perambulation-up-and.html


Nathaniel Smith (1738 - 1809). was the father of JT Smith, he was a former assistant to the sculptor Louis Francois Roubiliac (d. 1762). 

 

He resided and ran his business at the Rembrandt's Head, Great May's Buildings, St.Martin's Lane, London (in 1792-3, 1795, 1797-8). 8 May's Buildings, St Martin's Lane, London.





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No 1.







Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 1 | Hogarth carrying his Master's | sick child round Leicester fields | The Spot of ground | Leicester house"


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No 2.










Inscribed in pen and black ink, upper left: "W H"; inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 2. | Hogarth engraving his Master's | Shop-bills the sign of the Angel"


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No 3.






Inscribed in pen and brown ink, upper center: "THE GENTLEMAN'S GARDEN" inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "N.3 | Hogarth being out of his time | draws his companion's figure on | the door of a certain place to | the great admiration of all his friends"







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No 4.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 4 | Hogarth declaring his love | to Miss Thornhill."


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No 5.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 5 | Hogarth after his wife had | put on a new night shift, Ties | up her things to send to sir James | Thornhill with a letter in which | she told him "He took his Daughter | without a Smock to her a--e"


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No. 6.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 6 | Hogarth has made breakfast | and sends up a cup to his wife | at the same time ordering the | little dog to be admitted to her | mistresses bedchamber"

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No. 7.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 7 | Hogarth drinking the first | glass of wine with his wife | ---their dogs keeping | respectful distances"

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No. 8.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 8 | Sir James Thornhill's boy entering | his Master's painting room to | deliver the bundle and a letter in | the presence of Lady Thornhill"

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No 9.




Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 9 | The Smock exposed"

 

 

 

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No 10.






Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 10 | The reconsiliation".


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No 11.




Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 11 | Hogarth drawing Sarah Malcolm".

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No 12.







Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 12 | Hogarth painting in Vauxhall | gdens in the presence of | Jonathan Tyers"

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No 13.






Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 13 | Hogarth painting his | picture of Capt Coram for the | Foundling Hospital"

 

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No 14.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 14 | Hogarth solicits his Patron | Bishop Hoadley to look over | his M.S of "Analysis of beauty"

 

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no 15.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 15 | Hogarth making up a portrait of H. Fielding, | for a Bookseller, from the features of | Garrick who borrowed one of the Author's | wigs for that particular purpose there | being no genuine portrait of him".

 

 

 

 

 

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No 16.






Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 16 | Hogarth painting "The Ladys last stake" | in the presence of Lord Charlemont."

 

 

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No 17.





Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 17 | Hogarth sitting to Ronbeliac (Roubiliac) for | his Bust".

Note the model of Trump. Smith will have known the bust and model of the dog which had been owned by his father Nathaniel Smith and sold at auction in 1805


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No 18.







Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 18 | Hogarth at Old Slaughter's | hobbing with Highmore | the painter."



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No 19.




Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 19 | Hogarth having been followed by | Barry and a friend was caught | backing a boy to fight-purposely | to catch his fearful countenance".

 

 

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No. 20.








Inscribed in graphite, verso, center: "No 20 | The Eleventh hour".



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JT Smith.

From a drawing by Skelton.




The author had been a studio-assistant of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens from 1779 to 1781.

 

Commercially unsuccessful as a draughtsman and engraver of London views, he took the post of Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in 1816; and in 1828 published the first edition of this biography. His account is less an appreciation of the sculptor than a 'warts-and-all' biography, with anecdotes of the London art-world at the end of the eighteenth century. (A supplementary account of Nollekens was published by A. Cunningham in 1830.)

 

A list of the published works of John Thomas Smith  -

JT Smith, Nollekens and his Times. Published  London, by Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, Octr 1828'

A must read for anyone interested in 18th and Early 19th Century Sculpture.


The author had been a studio-assistant of Nollekens from 1779 to 1781. Commercially unsuccessful as a draughtsman and engraver of London views, he took the post of Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in 1816; and in 1828 published the first edition of this biography. His account is less an appreciation of the sculptor than a 'warts-and-all' biography, with anecdotes of the London art-world at the end of the eighteenth century. (A supplementary account of Nollekens was published by A. Cunningham in 1830.)

 The text records Nollekens's training in London under P. Scheemakers, W. Shipley and W.H. Spang and in Rome under Cavaceppi (1762-1770), where he produced his portrait-busts of Garrick, Sterne and Piranesi, and his career in London (1771-1823). In London his admired portrait-busts of George III, Samuel Johnson and Charles J. Fox and his funeral-monument to Lady Henrietta Williams-Wynn (1771) brought him many commissions.

 Most of the second volume (pp. 85-494) is taken up by 'Biographical Sketches And Anecdotes Of Several Artists And Others, Contemporary With Nollekens' - who were Roubiliac, Scheemakers, Rysbrack, Liart, Ceracchi, Locatelli, Procter, Zoffany, Sherwin, Gainsborough, Bacon, Wilton, Banks, Carlini, Dr. Burney, Ware and his companions at Old Slaughter's, 'public characters sometime inhabitants of St. Martin's Lane', Strange, Vivares and Woollett, Zuccarelli, Laroon, Macklin, Patterson the auctioneer, Cussans, Opie, Reynolds, Keate, Deare, Major, Morland, Wilson, Hogarth, Hayman, Barry, Legat, Humphrey, West, Hall, Cosway, Harlow, Fuseli, Flaxman and Blake.

 

 

 

Smith, John Thomas, A Book for a Rainy Day or Recollections of the Events of the Years

 1766-1833, ed. by W. Whitten, (London: Methuen & Co., 1905).

 

Smith, John Thomas, Ancient Topography of London; containing not only views of buildings, which in many instances no longer exist, and for the most part were never before published; but some account of places and customs either unknown, or overlooked by the London Historians, (London: J. McCreery, 1815).

 

Smith, John Thomas, Antiquities of London and its Environs; by John Thomas Smith:

 Dedicated to Sir James Winter Lake, Bart. F.S.A. Containing views of Houses, Monuments, Statues, and other curious remains of Antiquity; engraved from the original subjects and from Original Drawings, Communicated by several Members of the Society of Antiquaries: With Remarks & References to the Historical Works of Pennant, Lysons, Stowe, Weaver, Camden, Maitland etc., (London: [1791-1800]).

 

 Smith, John Thomas, Antiquities of Westminster; The Old Palace; St Stephen’s Chapel, (Now the House of Commons) &c. &c. Containing Two Hundred and Forty-Six Engravings of Topographical Objects, of which one hundred and twenty-two no longer remain. By John Thomas Smith. This work contains copies of manuscripts which throw new and unexpected light on the ancient history of the Arts in England, (London: T. Bensley, [1800-1807]).

 https://archive.org/details/antiquitiesofwes00smit/page/n9/mode/2up

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 Smith, John Thomas, Tag, Rag and Bob-Tail! being Portraits of Sixteen Notorious Personages, (famous and infamous,) chiefly about Cromwell’s time; Copied, with Accuracy, from very scarce Original Prints; and now First Published; For I. T. Smith [sic].

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The Antiquities of London, (London: J. Jones, 1800).

 

 Smith, John Thomas, The Cries of London: Exhibiting several of the Itinerant Traders of Antient [sic] and Modern Times. Copied from Rare Engravings or Drawn from the Life, with a Memoir and Portrait of the Author, ed. by J. Nichols, (London: John Bowyer Nichols and Son, 1839).

 

Smith, John Thomas, Vagabondiana; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London; with Portraits of the most Remarkable, Drawn from the Life by John Thomas Smith, Keeper of the Prints in the British Museum, (London: Published by the Proprietor: and sold by Messrs. J. and A. Arch, Cornhill; Mr. Hatchard, Bookseller to The Queen, Piccadilly; and Mr. Clarke, Bond-Street, 1817).

 

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SMITH, John Thomas. Remarks on Rural Scenery with twenty etchings of cottages, from nature; and some observations and precepts relative to the pictoresque. June MDCCXCVII. printed [by Joseph Downes] for, and sold by Nathaniel Smith ancient Print seller at Rembrandts-Head May’s Buildings, St. Martin’s Lane, and J. T. Smith, at No 40 Frith Street Soho, 1797.




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