A truly masterful ink and wash study of prehistoric creatures. This original illustration was part of a collection commissioned for Henry R. Knipe's (1854-1918) book "From Nebula To Man" published in 1905. This illustration shows a Entelodon and several Protoceras, grazing on an open plane in a prehistoric landscape. The artist's professional skill at zoological illustration is clear, with the animals forms being crisp and informative, yet still full of life and naturalism.
The artist has signed to the lower right corner.
On wove.The condition is typical for a picture of this age including some discolouration and dirtying to the surface. There is a small loss to the paper in the upper left corner.
16.8 x 25.1cm (6.6" x 9.9")
Smit was born in Lisse. He received his first commission from Hermann Schlegel at the Leiden Museum to work on the lithographs for a book on the birds of the Dutch East Indies. In 1866 he was invited to Britain by Philip Sclater to do the lithography for Sclater's Exotic Ornithology; he prepared a hundred images for the book.
He also did the lithography for his friend Joseph Wolf's Zoological Sketches, as well as Daniel Giraud Elliot's monographs on the Phasianidae and Paradisaeidae. Beginning in the 1870s, he worked on the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum (1874–1898, edited by Richard Bowdler Sharpe), and later on Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands.
Smit contributed illustrations to John Gould's books on birds of different parts of the world, along with leading Victorian era wildlife artists including Wolf, Edward Lear, William Hart, Henry Constantine Richter and J.G. Keulemans. He also provided many of the illustrations of dinosaurs and other fossil creatures for the popular book Extinct Monsters (1892) by Henry Neville Hutchinson.
He died in his home on Cobden Hill, Radlett, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom on 4 November 1929 at age 93.
| SKU | qn216 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Joseph Smit (1836–1929) |
| Date | Early 20th Century |
| Dimensions | 16.8 x 25.1cm |
| Medium | Watercolour |
| Style | Realism |
| Subject | Animals & Nature |
| Item Returns | This item can be returned |
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