Dorothea Eliza Smith

Dorothea Eliza Smith (1804–1864) was a botanical artist noted for painting South American fruit. A relatively obscure figure, her works were considered valuable by European botanists who lacked access to South American flora.

Personal life Smith was born in Llanfwrog near Ruthin, North Wales, on 29 January 1804, the third child of at least seven children of Colonel Joseph and Dorothy Peers. In 1828 she married William Kerr, a merchant trading from Caracas, Venezuela, but by 1840 he had died. She married again in 1840 in Birkenhead to Archibald Smith, a Scottish medical doctor who had worked in Peru. The couple initially lived in Argyll, Scotland and soon had four children. However, in 1848 the eldest, Dorothy, and her father were in a shipwreck on the Peruvian coast and the child was drowned. It included illustrations of species (such as Campomanesia lineatifolia) that were little known to European scientists at the time.

Following her death, the volume was kept and circulated to interested scientists. It was acquired by the Crewe Hall library and then by Paul and Rachel Mellon in 1957 and is now held among the rare books and manuscripts at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia, US.