John Thomas Smith

John Thomas Smith, also known as Antiquity Smith (23 June 1766 – 8 March 1833), was an English painter, engraver and antiquarian. He wrote a life of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, that was noted for its "malicious candour", He was named John for his grandfather and Thomas after his great uncle, Admiral Thomas Smith. His father Nathaniel Smith was at that time a sculptor working for Joseph Nollekens, but later became a printseller.

In 1796, the young John Constable was introduced to Smith, and he became Constable's informal artistic mentor.

Smith published books of engravings and worked as a drawing master in Edmonton. In 1807, he published Antiquities of Westminster which has been described as his major work. The work had been inspired by paintings found during extension work to the Houses of Parliament on 11 August 1800. Smith and Charles Gower were invited to see the pictures, and Smith was able to obtain permission to sketch them. He had to work early in the morning to avoid the workmen. It is said that they frequently demolished what he had just finished sketching and he kept this work up constantly for six weeks. After this his permission was transferred to an artist from the Society of Antiquaries, but Smith had a complete record by that time. The unkind portrait of Nollekens was also accompanied by short biographies of other leading figures that were better received and are a valuable source for art historians.

Smith died from inflammation of the lungs on 8 March 1833 at his home at 22 University Street, off Tottenham Court Road. to the compositional "rule of thirds".

Works include Remarks on Rural Scenery, 1797 Antiquities of Westminster, 1807 The Streets of London: Anecdotes of Their More Celebrated Residents, 1815 Vagabondiana, or Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London, 1817 Nollekens and his Times. 2 volumes 1828

Posthumous: Cries of London (ed. John Bowyer Nichols, 1839) Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London (ed., Charles Mackay, 1846) A Book for a Rainy Day: or, Recollections of the Events of The Last Sixty-Six Years, 1905