Joseph Smith (1682-1770)

Joseph Smith often known as Consul Smith, (ca 1682 – Venice, 6 November 1770), the British consul at Venice, 1744–1760, was a patron of artists, most notably Canaletto, and a collector and connoisseur, banker to the British community at Venice and a major draw on the British Grand Tour. His collection of drawings were bought for George III of Great Britain and form a nucleus of the Royal Collection of drawings in the Print Room at Windsor Castle.

Smith took up residence in 1700, in the import-export trade and merchant banking house of Thomas Williams, the British consul; he eventually headed the partnership of Williams and Smith and made a modest fortune. His reputation was as a passionate collector, of paintings and drawings – both of sixteenth and seventeenth century masters and of living artists – and of manuscripts and books, coins and medals, and engraved gems. Beside Canaletto, among the living painters whom he patronised were Francesco Zuccarelli, of Florence, and the Venetian Giuseppe Zais. His favoured architect for rebuilding the façade of his palazzo was Antonio Visentini.

It was his pleasure to issue lavishly-printed books in extremely limited editions, for which he had the services of Giovanni Battista Pasquali, whose press he bankrolled. A reproduction of Boccaccio's Decamerone from the Pasquali press, guided by Smith, was so exact a facsimile of the rare edition of 1527 that only close examination tells them apart. A Catalogue Librorum Rarissimorum was in fact a partial catalogue of the outstanding rarities in Smith's own library; the first edition consisted of twenty-five copies. A second edition (1737) adds thirty-one titles. A general catalogue of his library was published in 1755.

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