Exceptional miniature of Young Boy
by Hannah Elizabeth Smith
A truly exquisite miniature of a young boy in a blue velvet outfit by Hannah Elizabeth Smith signed and dated 1895
Artist:Hannah Elizabeth Smith
Artist Bio:
The youngest of six children born to Alfred Newland Smith (1813-1876) and Catherine Gough (1814-ca. 1886), Hannah Elizabeth Smith was born in 1855, in Cheltenham, Gloucester. Her father was an accomplished landscape, cityscape and portrait painter in oils; and her grandfather, Daniel Newland Smith (1791-1839) was also a painter. No record has surfaced to indicate where Hannah was trained as an artist, but it is presumed that she received her earliest instruction from her father. Unlike her father, however, who is remembered to this day for his large oil paintings, she chose to become a painter of miniatures in watercolour on ivory. Hannah was first identified in public records as a miniature painter in 1881, when she was listed as such in the 1881 England Census (living with her widowed mother in the London Borough of Lambeth). The following year, she married Vincent Butler Smith (1857-1922), her second cousin (their grandfathers, Daniel Newland Smith and Thomas Smith, were brothers). Vincent was a school master at Buxton College, a West Ham boarding school for boys aged 10-18. Although many young women of her generation discontinued painting upon getting married, Hannah continued painting throughout her married life. Over a 28 year period, between 1888 and 1916, she regularly exhibited her work at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Miniature Society, and the Royal Society of Artists. Three years after her last exhibition, Hannah Elizabeth Smith died in London at the age of 64, on May 13, 1919.
