John Raphael Smith

John Raphael Smith
Sculpture by Sir Francis Chantrey in the V&A
Born	1751 Derby
Died	2 March 1812
Occupation	painter and mezzotint engraver

John Raphael Smith (1751 – 2 March 1812) was an English painter and mezzotint engraver, son of Thomas Smith of Derby, the landscape painter, and father of John Rubens Smith, a painter who emigrated to the United States.

Baptized on 25 May 1751, Smith was apprenticed to a linen-draper in Derby, and afterwards pursued the same business in London, adding to his income by producing miniatures. He then turned to engraving and executed his plate of the Public Ledger, which had great popularity, and was followed by his mezzotints of Edwin the Minstrel (a portrait of Thomas Haden) and Indian Widow, after Wright of Derby, and Mercury Inventing the Lyre, after Barry.

He reproduced some forty works of Reynolds, some of which ranked among the masterpieces of mezzotint, and he was appointed engraver to the Prince of Wales. Adding to his artistic pursuits an extensive connexion as a print-dealer and publisher, he would soon have acquired wealth had it not been for his dissipated habits. He was a boon companion of George Morland, whose figure-pieces he excellently mezzotinted.

Smith was the teacher of J. M. W. Turner. His registered pupils were William Hilton, Charles Howard Hodges, Christiaan Josi, Samuel William Reynolds, James and William Ward (engraver), and Peter de Wint. In 1778 Smith was commissioned to complete a mezzotint engraving by John Milnes following his purchase of a painting and all known engravings of the work of Joseph Wright of Derby. The painting was called The Captive and the engraving was used to make just twenty impressions before it was destroyed. One of these rare engravings is in Smith's home town at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.