A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters: in which is included a short biographical notice of the artists, with a copious description of their principal pictures : a statement of the prices at which such pictures have been sold at public sales on the continent and in England; a reference the the galleries and private collections in which a large portion are at present; and the names of the artists by whom they have been engraved; to which is added, a brief notice of the scholars & imitators of the great masters of the above schools
John Smith's 1836 catalogue raisonné surveys Dutch, Flemish and French painters, with short artist biographies, descriptions of major pictures, sale prices and the engravers who reproduced them, written for collectors and dealers. Its plates are engravings of Dutch town architecture and a dark, shadowed portrait of an elderly man in a beret, both rendered in tonal black-and-grey line and mezzotint; a designer might take from them the stepped gables and dense detail of old Dutch streetscapes and the strong chiaroscuro of portrait studies.
