Smith, Joseph
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- Smith, Joseph
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(c.1674 - 1770), merchant banker, collector and dealer in Venice; educ. Westminster; m. 1 c.1717 Catherine Tofts (d. 1755), 2 1757 Elizabeth Murray; cons. Venice 1744 - 60; d. Venice.
c.1700 - 70 Venice ( - d. 6 Nov. 1770)
'Unusual, colourful, gifted but not altogether sympathetic', Joseph Smith passed some seventy years in Venice where he practised as a merchant banker and for some years acted as British consul. His reputation, however, was principally founded on his remarkable (and profitable) activity as a virtuoso and patron of the arts.1 After attending Westminster school in London he went to Venice c.1700 to work with Thomas Williams, a merchant banker, whom he succeeded as manager in 1720. Williams & Smith, an international firm of repute, dealt extensively with the import of meat and fish from Amsterdam; as bankers their activities ranged from handling the subsidy from the maritime powers to Prince Eugene in 1705, to acting as agents for British visitors in Venice.
Smith lived in a small palazzo (now the Mangilli-Valmarana) near SS.Apostoli on the Grand Canal north of the Rialto, initially leased by Williams from the Balbi family, then bought outright by Smith in 1740 and extensively rebuilt. Smith had also bought in 1731 a small estate at Mogliano on the Venetian mainland. Antonio Visentini, Smith's artistic factotum, acted as his architect for both properties. Smith was twice married, firstly to the opera singer Catherine Tofts, by whom he had an only child, John (1721 - 7); following her death in 1755, he renounced his courtship of the youthful Giustiniana Wynne, and at the age of seventy-six married the British resident's daughter, Elizabeth Murray, in 1757. After many years of coveting public office, Smith was made consul in June 1744, a position he resigned in 1760, when he said he was going to tour Italy and return to England.2 But it appears he travelled little in Italy and never saw Rome; in 1766 (when he was well over eighty) Smith acted as charg? d'affaires in Venice following the departure of the resident John Murray and until the arrival of his successor Sir James Wright.
Smith's collecting grew inevitably out of his banking activities and the element of business became indistinguishable from patronage. In the 1710s he was buying manuscripts and books, probably inspired by the remarkable purchases being made in this field in Italy by his client Thomas Coke of Holkham. Printed catalogues of Smith's library, aimed at attracting purchasers, appeared in 1720 (121 manuscripts, bought by the 3rd Earl of Sunderland), 1722 (101 manuscripts), and 1724 (227 incunabula; a second edition in 1737), to culminate in the Bibliotheca Smithiana (which also described his vast collection of drawings) of 1755. It was in his celebrated library that Smith's interest in antiquity was principally displayed. From the early 1730s he financed and directed the Pasquali Press, named after his literary collaborator G.B. Pasquali, a classical scholar, with Visentini the principal designer. The Press published a wide range of scholarly books, including a facsimile Palladio. Attached to it was a bookshop, La Felicita delle Lettere, which became a meeting place for scholars of the Enlightenment. Smith was far more than a sponsor for the Press; it was largely through his exertions, for example, that Guicciardini's Istoria d'Italia was published in 1738, and his enjoyment of literature was acknowledged by Goldoni who dedicated to him his play Il Filosofo Inglese [1754]. Smith was a keen theatre-goer and regularly attended the opera and in 1734 he was acting as Farinelli's agent.3
The most prominent part of Smith's collections was soon to be contemporary paintings, particularly by Venetian artists. In the 1720s he had acquired (perhaps commissioned)4 seven large Biblical subjects from Sebastiano and Marco Ricci. Rosalba Carriera (whose godfather was Smith's lawyer) received regular payments from Smith in 1725 - 8 (some perhaps on behalf of clients) and he eventually owned 38 works by her, including the Self portrait which she gave him in her old age. By 1730 Smith was apparently acting as the young Canaletto's agent; in 1735 Visentini engraved twenty Canalettos from Smith's collection, fourteen of which illustrated the topography of the Grand Canal (the Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum). Nearly twenty years later Canaletto added in the rebuilt fa?ade of Smith's palazzo in his View of the Grand Canal to the north of the Rialto. In September 1734 Smith assured Lord Essex that he had made Canaletto 'sett aside some other works' in order to 'finish the four pieces [Lady Essex] commission'd me to procure for her'.5 Canaletto painted comparable series for the 4th Earl of Carlisle and the 4th Duke of Bedford but, when war reduced his British clientele in 1742, Canaletto again worked for Smith. Six large views of ancient Roman monuments were followed by thirteen overdoors illustrating Palladian buildings in Venice and, shortly before he left for England in 1746, Canaletto dedicated to Smith a series of 31 etchings, altre prese da i Luoghi altre ideate. Zuccarelli and Visentini then continued the series of overdoors with eleven views of English Palladian buildings. Smith also owned paintings (now lost) and drawings by Piazetta, but he neglected G.B. Tiepolo.
Smith acquired old masters, though few of the purchases are documented. They included Bellini's Agony in the Garden (which Smith knew as a Mantegna) and Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross (both NG London). In 1741 he had sold a number of (unidentified) paintings to the Elector of Saxony, and at the same time he bought a collection of Dutch and Flemish pictures from Pellegrini's widow, amongst which (almost certainly) was Smith's Vermeer (then called Frans van Mieris), The Lady at the Virginals. In 1752 he bought more old masters from the heirs of Zaccaria Sagredo, including a fine Bellini portrait and several volumes of drawings (over 200 by G.B. Castiglione), and many by the Carracci family and Raphael. Smith's collection of drawings included many by Marco and Sebastiano Ricci and Canaletto. There were further aspects to Smith's remarkable collections. He owned some bronzes, and he took pride in his selection of gems and cameos - as he described to the Florentine antiquary, A.F. Gori who compiled the Dactyliotheca Smithiana, completed in 1767. There was also a collection of coins and medals which, with his cameos and some jewels, was deposited in 1761 with Santino Cambiaso as surety against a debt.
Soon after the publication of the Bibliotheca Smithiana in 1755, Smith considered the sale of his library to 'a Royal Purchaser'. The War of the Austrian Succession (1740 - 8) had harmed his finances, but then the outbreak of the Seven Years War (1756 - 63) aggravated his position. In 1760, when he was over eighty years old and recently remarried, Smith was described as 'devilishly poor'; he 'ought to sell', said James Adam, 'if vanity would allow him, but he is literally eaten up with it'.6 In 1761 he sold the stock and contents of the bookshop. He made a will on 5 May 1761, leaving his collections to his wife (and amongst his small bequests, a portrait of the Doge Cornaro by Uberti to John Udny, then his business partner and successor as British consul). But the will was overtaken by events. In 1760, on George III's accession, the sale of Smith's collection to a royal patron was reconsidered. James Stuart Mackenzie (who had been British envoy in Turin), negotiated the purchase, not only of the contents of the Bibliotheca Smithiana, but of paintings and gems, coins and medals, for £20,000 (see also Richard Dalton), and early in 1763 Smith's collection arrived by sea in London (at the same time as Cardinal Albani's collection of drawings, also bought by George III).
It appears, however, that not everything was sold, and that Smith did not renounce collecting. When he died in 1770 several hundred paintings and drawings remained in his possession. In June 1773 Patrick Home bought several pictures from Mrs Smith in Venice (see Home), and others were acquired by her friend John Strange. The majority, however, were sold, with some sculpture, at Christie's in 1776 (22 Apr., 16 May). Many books were described in two posthumous catalogues (Venice 1771 and London, Baker & Leigh, 25 Jan. 1773). A collection of coins was bought from Smith's widow by William Hunter in 1777. Other items from Smith's collections appeared in Dalton's sale, (Christie's, 11 Apr. 1791), while Bellini's Agony in the Garden was one of several Smith paintings in Joshua Reynolds's sale (Christie's, 13 Mar. 1795). Some plate and jewels were sold in 1789 (Christie's, 9 Apr. 1789) after Mrs Smith's death. The Smith collection bought by George III remains in the Royal Collection, except for the books and illuminated manuscripts which were transferred to the British Museum in 1823.
1. See F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, 299 - 310, 391 - 4, 406 - 7; F. Vivian, The Consul Smith Collection, exh. cat. Frankfurt etc. [1989], 11 - 41, and A King's Purchase, exh. cat. Queen's Gallery [1993]. The most complete account is F. Vivian, Il Console Smith [Vicenza 1971]. 2. SP 99/68 (Smith, 29 Oct. 1760). 3. Add.27733, f.80 (Smith, 14 May 1734). 4. G. Knox, Apollo, 140[1994]:17 - 25. 5. Add.27733, f.131 (18 Sep. 1734). 6. Fleming, Adam, 270.