XANTHUS RUSSELL SMITH

Marine, landscape, portrait, and historical painter Xanthus Russell Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1839, son of William Thompson Russell Smith. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania from 1856 to 1858, during which period he also began exhibiting landscapes at the Pennsylvania Academy. He studied painting at the Academy in Philadelphia and at the Royal Academy in London. During the Civil War he saw active service in the South and painted many naval and land battles. After the war he devoted himself chiefly to marines and landscapes until his later years when he turned to portraits. For many years he had a summer home at Casco Bay, Maine; his winters were spent near Philadelphia, where he died in 1929.