Joseph Smit

These hand-finished chromolithographs are by the accomplished Joseph Smit (1836-1929) and from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society(PZS) and Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum (BM). Born in the Netherlands, Smit was invited to Britain by Philip Sclater in 1866 and did the lithography for Sclater's Exotic Ornithology. He also did the lithography for Joseph Wolf's Zoological Sketches (second series), as well as Daniel Elliott's monographs on the Phasianeidae and Paradiseida. Smit contributed regularly to the Transactions and the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Ibis, and The Field. Beginning in the 1870s, he worked on the massive Catalogue of Birds in the Museum, and later on the Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds in the British Museum.

Smit was "Considered . . . the best animal painter in England after the death of J. Wolf" -- S. Peter Dance.