Mary Smirke

{{Use British English|date=October 2019}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} '''Mary Smirke''' (22 June 1779 – 14 September 1853) was an English artist and translator.

==Biography== Smirke was one of the eight children born to the painter and illustrator Robert Smirke and his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1825.<ref name="ODNB51">{{cite book|editor= HCG Matthew & Brian Harrison |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Vol 51 (Smirke-Sprott)|isbn=0-19-861401-2}}</ref> Their other children included the architects Sir Robert Smirke and Sydney Smirke, the draughtsman Richard Smirke and the lawyer and archaeologist Sir Edward Smirke.<ref name="ODNB51"/>

thumb|''Robert Smirke'' by Mary Smirke - now in the Royal Academy collection Mary Smirke attended school in Rickmansworth and received her artistic training from her father.<ref name="ODNB51"/> She was employed as a painter and copyist by Nathaniel Dance-Holland and Sir Thomas Lawrence and in due course became a well-regarded landscape painter. Between 1809 and 1814 she exhibited six paintings at the Royal Academy in London.<ref name="BMms">{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=107248 |title=Mary Smirke (Biographical details)|access-date=26 September 2019|work= The British Museum}}</ref> These paintings included ''View of Arundel Castle'' and ''Cottege near Blackheath''.<ref name="Benezit12">{{cite book|publisher=Editions Grund, Paris|year=2006|title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists Volume 12 Rouco-Sommer|isbn=2-7000-3082-6}}</ref>

Smirke was also a translator and in 1818 her English translation of ''Don Quixote'', with illustrations by her father, was published.<ref name="BMms"/> She published two volumes of poetry, in 1843 and 1853, as ''Illustrated Translations from the German'' which she also illustrated with pen and ink drawings.<ref name="ODNB51"/> Smirke's portrait of her father is held by the Royal Academy in London. The portrait was copied and engraved by John Jackson and Charles Picart and examples of that engraving are held by the National Portrait Gallery while both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Institute of British Architects hold examples of her drawings.<ref name="ODNB51"/><ref name="NPGms">{{cite web |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07573/mary-smirke|title=Mary Smirke (Active 1797-1821)|access-date=26 September 2019|work= National Portrait Gallery}}</ref><ref name="RAms">{{cite web |url=https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/mary-smirke|title=Mary Smirke (1797-1853)|access-date=26 September 2019|work= Royal Academy}}</ref><ref name="V&Ams">{{cite web |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O735044/valle-crucis-abbey-denbighshire-watercolour-drawing-smirke-mary/ |title=Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbighshire|access-date=26 September 2019|work= Victoria and Albert Museum}}</ref> The Yale Center for British Art holds an 1823 painting by Smirke.<ref name="YCBAms">{{cite web |url=https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3657296 |title=View from Fairlight near Hastings|access-date=26 September 2019|work= Yale Center for British Art}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{Art UK bio}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smirke, Mary}} Category:1779 births Category:1853 deaths Category:19th-century English painters Category:19th-century English illustrators Category:19th-century English translators Category:19th-century English women painters Category:English women illustrators