A conical red shell, by ca. 1840

Samuel Smith (fl. 1800 - fl. 1840)

RA Collection: Art

A watercolour of a banded, conical red and white shell. Shells, like flowers and landscape vignettes, were popular subjects for decorating porcelain. This drawing, along with the others on the same mount, is almost certainly related to Smith's work as a porcelain painter for Flight, Barr and Barr in Worcester. John Homes Smith and his son John Halphead Smith who collected these drawings also worked as porcelain painters and they probably knew, or were perhaps related to, Samuel Smith.