Smith, James (McKechnie Section 2)
Known only from his three trade labels, one of which shows an illustration of a silhouette of a woman in the costume of c. 1780. Since silhouettes on glass and plaster were not much in fashion at that date, it seems most likely that he painted on card. His trade labels tell us that he also worked as a painter of portraits in oil, as a copier of portraits, landscapes and historical paintings, and as a painter of ‘miniature pictures’. Smith’s Trade Label No. 3 describes him as a ‘carver, gilder and frame-maker’.
Long mentions no artist with the address given on Smith’s Trade Label No. 1 (95 Newman Street, near Oxford Street, London). Trade Label No. 2 gives the address 40 Oxford Street (on the corner of Newman Street). Trade Label No. 3 is similar in design to the other two labels, but does not show either a silhouette (as does No. 1) or a miniature (as does No. 2). I have seen it on the reverse of a portrait miniature apparently painted after 1800. It gives the address 7 Cockspur Street, near Haymarket, London. The frame in which the miniature is housed is of papier mâché, with pearwood oval and verre églomisé glass.
It is unlikely that Smith’s name will be found in any list of engravers of the period, as at least two of his labels were engraved not by himself but by John Strongistharm at 127 Pall Mall 1783-90. A James Smith exhibited a miniature portrait of a lady (No. 452) at the Society of Artists in 1773 (from ‘Mr. Griffiths, New Street, Covent Garden’), and a crayon portrait (No. 209) at the Free Society of Artists in 1776 (from ‘Mr Bradshaw’s, James’ St., Covent Garden’). These exhibits, and twenty-six further exhibits, many of them crayon portraits, sent in to the Royal Academy, 1779-89, by the same man, suggest that James Smith may have been a portraitist who painted a few silhouettes over a short period. Foskett lists sixty artists named Smith; these include James Smith, but she does not record under his name any of the addresses on the three trade labels.
Since other silhouette artists, such as A. Charles and Mrs Beetham, illustrated on their trade labels profiles which were similar in style to their own work, we can probably assume that Smith did so also. We would therefore expect his silhouette work to be in the form of plain black profiles painted on card or paper, showing sitters wearing the costume of the 1780s.
Smith’s Trade Label No. 1 is illustrated. His Trade Label No. 2 is similar in format, but shows the different address given above and a miniature in place of a silhouette. Both labels are in the Banks collection in the British Museum (‘Artists’ section, Nos. 3195 and 3193).
By the time Smith started to use Trade Label No. 3 (which he continued to use for about twenty-five years after he had ceased to use No. 1) his work as carver and print-seller had superseded his work as miniature painter. If it was indeed James Smith the portraitist who used these three labels. it might be considered strange that an artist with as many as twenty-six Royal Academy exhibits to his credit should change the course of his career in this way, but it must be borne in mind that Smith was working at a time when there was fierce competition in the field of miniature painting.
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