John Smith

Object Type
This is a print, of a type called mezzotint, a form of tonal engraving in which the design is made by pitting the surface of a copper plate with a serrated tool called a rocker, then smoothing and scraping the roughened surface so that different areas of the plate will hold varying quantities of ink. This creates a range of velvety tones and white highlights when the image is printed on to the paper.

People
The painter, Godfrey Kneller, was born in Germany and came to London around 1676. The foremost portrait painter of his generation in England, he was knighted in 1692.

The printmaker, John Smith, was born near Northampton. He worked in London as a mezzotinter.

Kneller and Smith were artistic collaborators and friends. Smith enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the making of prints after portraits by Kneller, from 1689 until Kneller's death in 1723, because Kneller allowed Smith privileged access to his paintings.

In 1696 Kneller painted a portrait of Smith showing him holding his mezzotint of a self-portrait by Kneller. In 1716, Smith made this mezzotint of the painting.

Trading
This print gives no publisher's address. It was a private plate, not for sale on the open market. Instead, the sitter would have distributed examples of it. It may have been intended as a frontispiece to the bound sets of Smith's mezzotints, which he put together and sold to print collectors. Smith was the first British printmaker to earn the admiration of print collectors outside England, in countries such as France, The Netherlands, Germany and Italy, which had long and distinguished printmaking traditions of their own.