When I began my dissertation on Smibert at Yale University, in 1975, I was intrigued by the recent dis covery and publication of the artist's notebook. This document, which is among the most comprehensive records of Anglo-American painting to survive, re cords more than four hundred portrait commissions,of which fewer than one hundred were then located.
This study of the important colonial painter John Smibert takes him from his early life in Edinburgh to his final years in Boston. The first book to comment on a colonial immigrant artist's earlier career in Europe, it also offers a rich discussion of Smibert's colonial achievements, dwelling on his patronage, studios, triumphs, and disappointments. The book willbe an indispensable tool in the study of colonial painting.
Preface
Introduction
1 Scotland
2 London and Edinburgh
3 Italy
4 A London Studio
5 Covent Garden
6 Boston and The Bermuda Group
7 New Directions
8 "Above All, an Exemplary Christian"" Smibert's Final Years
Notes
Catalog
A. Accepted Works
B. Copies
C. Disputed Works
D. Unlocated Works
E. Misattributed Works and Fakes
APPENDXX 1 References to Smibert in Vertue's Notebooks
APPENDIX 2 Correspondence
APPENDIX 3 The Administration and Inventory of Smibert's Estate
APPENDIX 4 Smibert's Epitaph
References
Index
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