Consul Smith: An Englishman Abroad.
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mith established himself as a merchant in 1709 rising to the prestigious, though modestly paid office of British Consul to Venice in 1744. Living in a palace in the English taste on the Grand Canal, Smith entertained many important cultural luminaries; he was an avid devotee of opera and theatre, and married the controversial opera singer Catherine Tofts. The celebrated dramatist Goldoni wrote a play about him and entitled it, perhaps with some irony: Il Filosofo Inglese. Walpole sarcastically dubbed him “The Merchant of Venice” and he appears to have been generally disliked. Yet he was an ardent collector who started in the 1720s with works by Sebastiano Ricci at a time when Tiepolo was virtually unknown and his tutor Lazzarini had retired. Smith also owned a series of works by Veronese, probably acquired as a section of his studio, but as yet there was nothing from which an individual taste might be inferred. In the 1720s Smith also patronised Rosalba Carriera who was working for him by 1723. His collection contained pastel portraits by her including a portrait of a young woman called “Winter.”1 By 1730- when Smith was 55- he had an impressive, though stylistically unremarkable collection, consisting of Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, Carlo Cignani (Bologna), Rosalba, and possibly some Piazzetta. However, the direction of Smith’s collection completely changes with Canaletto’s (above) arrival on the scene in the 1720s.
1Described by Smith (cited in Haskell, Patrons and Painters, 303): “Beautiful female covering herself with a Pelisse allowed to be the most excellent this Virtuosa ever painted.”
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