As hundreds of thousands of well-dressed motoring enthusiasts gather this weekend at Goodwood in Sussex, it is worth remembering that the famous house is also home to one of the finest art collections in the country. In the eighteenth century the second and third Dukes of Richmond were important patrons of, respectively, Canaletto and George Stubbs, and the former's pair of London views and the latter's Charlton Hunt are celebrated attractions in the House today. Among other, less renowned contemporary painters assisted and encouraged by both noblemen was George Smith, the best of the three artist brothers known today as 'the Smith brothers of Chichester'.

A particularly well-preserved landscape in the manner of Claude by George Smith, dated 1751, and very like the one we offer here, hung in my grandfather's house from the 1940s onwards. Like those of many other artists advocated by our firm ever since, Smith's paintings came to John Mitchell's attention through Colonel Grant's imposing volumes of Old English Landscape Painters, written a hundred years ago. At about the same time the present example was acquired by Sir Sydney Barratt (a leading industrialist and connoisseur) from John Mitchell in the late 1950s, Mr Paul Mellon, with the help of his adviser the much-respected Basil Taylor, had already begun to build the now world-famous and unparalleled collection of British painting to be enjoyed today at the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut. Mellon's approach was to concentrate on the painting not the name, thus embracing greater and lesser artists, and in this way bought no fewer than eight oils by George Smith of Chichester, four of them from coming from John Mitchell.

George Smith was apprenticed to one of his uncles to learn the trade of a cooper, but he abandoned this at an early age and joined his brothers William and John in Gloucester and then in London, at first to learn to be portrait painter. It was, however, as a landscapist that he came to the attention of the second Duke of Richmond (1701-1750) back in Chichester, and even though the 1740s saw him sharing a studio in London again with his brother John, from about 1750 onwards their studio was firmly established in North Street, Chichester. It was from the landscape around that town, the distant view of its cathedral and the wooded scenery of the Arun valley that they drew the inspiration for most of their work, and demand for it was underpinned by the awards they won at the Free Society of Artists in London, and the patronage of the third Duke (1735-1806) and his family, in particular his sister Lady Sarah Lennox.

In 1983 my father, Peter Mitchell, curated an exhibition of the brothers' work at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, and in the introduction to the catalogue, he succinctly described why we should continue to admire and enjoy their pictures:

        Their work is quintessentially English in its understatement. Not for the Smiths the bold statement nor indeed anything liable to disturb the tranquility and harmony of their work. Despite the frequent references to Claudean pictures, the majority of their work was rural and picturesque, and often on a small scale. These are intimate paintings that invite you to dwell with them, yielding up their subtleties at the lingering pace of their conception....At a cursory glance, there is no impact, no display for the onlooker, no moral, no story. No wind stronger than a zephyr stirs this world. Even the goat stranded at the top of a waterfall is pointed out with only the gentlest of drama....

George Smith's technique is part of the originality of his work and makes it both individual and instantly recognisable. As can be seen here, he relied not on bold brushwork and impasto but on glazes within a limited palette to build up tonal effects and gradation of value. If these fragile glazes have over time become more translucent, or been cleaned insensitively, the darker colours can show through, diminishing and dulling the original effects, and too often, perhaps, the Smiths have been judged by canvases are not fair measures of their original intention. We feel that, two hundred and fifty years to the month after his death, George Smith would wish to be remembered for such pleasing and elegant landscapes as this one.

James Mitchell
September 2026