Smibert was born in
Edinburgh on 24 March 1688, the second youngest of six children of Alison and John Smibert, a litster, or wool dyer. From 1702 to 1709, he was apprenticed to a house painter and plasterer in Edinburgh. On moving to London in 1709 he worked as a
coach painter and copyist. 1713-1716, he studied under
Godfrey Kneller at the
Great Queen Street Academy, then returned to Edinburgh, seeking work as portraitist. and then settled in London where he worked as a portrait painter from 1722 until 1728. who, in 1728, enticed Smibert to accompany him to America, with the intention of becoming professor of fine arts in the college which Berkeley was planning to found in
Bermuda. The college, however, was never established, and Smibert settled in Boston, where he married in 1730. He lived at the corner of
Brattle Street and
Queen-Street. He belonged to the
Scots Charitable Society of Boston. , between the
Town-House and the orange tree, Boston," 1734 in Boston commemorating Smibert In 1728, he began painting
Dean George Berkeley and His Entourage, also called
The Bermuda Group, which became one of the most influential
New England portraits. It was commissioned by John Wainright, a patron of George Berkeley, and depicts the members of the planned expedition to Bermuda. The painting, now in the
Yale University Art Gallery, includes Berkeley at the right, Wainwright seated at left, and Smibert standing at the far left. Smibert painted portraits of
Jonathan Edwards and Judge
Edmund Quincy (in the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), Mrs Smibert,
Peter Faneuil and
Governor John Endecott (in the Massachusetts Historical Society), John Lovell (Memorial Hall,
Harvard University), and probably one of
Sir William Pepperrell; and examples of his works are owned by Harvard and Yale Universities, by
Bowdoin College, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. Between 1740 and 1742, he served as architect for the original
Faneuil Hall, which he designed in the style of an English country market. The hall burned down in 1761 but was restored, and then in 1806 greatly expanded and modified by
Charles Bulfinch. His son
Nathaniel was also a painter. Smibert lies in Tomb 62 in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. ==Gallery==