(1688 - 1751), painter, of Edinburgh; studied in London at Great Queen St Acad.; returned to Edinburgh 1717; to America with Bp. George Berkeley 1728, and settled in Boston, Mass.
1719 - 22 [dep. Leith 1 Aug. 1719] Genoa, Leghorn (five days), Pisa, Lucca (two days), Florence (19 Nov. 1719 - 5 Nov. 1720), Rome (12 Nov. 1720 - 15 Jun. 1721), Leghorn, Rome (by Dec. 1721), Leghorn, Padua (6 - 8 May 1722), Venice (8 - 22 May) [London summer]
Smibert was already established as a portrait painter in Scotland when he set out from Leith for Italy on 1 August 1719.1 He went through France and, having crossed the Alps, sailed from Genoa to Leghorn, where he passed five days. He then spent almost a year in Florence, in the course of which he studied in the Grand Duke's galleries, copying Raphael, Rubens and Titian. His copies of portraits by van Dyck and Tintoretto survive (Fogg AM and Bowdoin Coll. MA). His application was noticed by the Florentine antiquary Niccolo Gabburri who in his manuscript Le Vite de'pittori observed that Smibert 'drew the best statues and copied many of the best paintings from the Royal Gallery of Tuscany'. Smibert also made extensive acquisitions of works by essentially near-contemporary Florentine masters; between 1 February and 28 October 1720 he bought fifty paintings and 250 drawings, as well as examples of semi-precious stone boxes and pietre dure. That summer Smibert met George Berkeley (then travelling with St George Ashe), and the two became close friends, ultimately going together to America. Smibert painted portraits of both Berkeley (priv. coll.) and St George Ashe (untraced).
He came to Rome on 12 November 1720 and painted several portraits, of which two survive although the sitters are not identified (Wadsworth Atheneum and Montclair AM). He also copied portraits of the Pretender and his wife for Sir Andrew Cockburn in London.2 On 24 April 1721 'Smybert a Scotsman and Painter', witnessed the marriage of Andrew Hay's sister by the Rev. G. Barclay (the Pretender's Church of Scotland chaplain), and on 15 June 'Mr John Smybert painter a Scotsman' left Rome for Leghorn.3 There he received further (unspecified) commissions. In December he was again in Rome delivering paintings and receiving final payments before going back to Leghorn. His travel notebook ends in December, but Smibert was recorded on his journey home in Padua on 6 May 1722. Two days later he left for Venice and then on the 22nd he returned to Padua, on each occasion accompanied by a Mr Tomson and a Mr Trotter (the latter probably Andrew Hay's brother-in-law).4 He was back in London by the summer of 1722. According to Vertue, Smibert had also visited Naples in the course of his Italian visit.5
1. See R.H. Saunders, John Smibert, [1995], 24 - 33. The Notebook of John Smibert, [Boston, Mass. 1969]. 2. Stuart-Wortley MSS, 34. 3. Rawlinson jnl.MSS (24 Apr., 15 Jun. 1721). 4. Ibid. (6, 8, 22 May 1722). 5. Vertue, 3:14.