Best known for her small genre paintings of chickens and barnyard scenes, Mary Russell Smith was a member of a distinguished family of American artists-the daughter of Russell and Mary Priscilla Wilson Smith, and the sister of Xanthus Smith. She was born at the family's rural home, Rockhill, a few miles north of Philadelphia, and settled at their next estate, Edgehill, in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, for the rest of her life. Her mother, a noted flower and still-life painter, trained her at home, and Mary produced her first work at the age of fourteen. She quickly became an accomplished artist, showing her paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual exhibitions from 1859 to 1869, and again in 1876 and 1878. In her short career, she painted over three hundred paintings, which she carefully detailed in her "Account of Work Done by Mary Smith, Artist." (Collection of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.)

In his famous critical volume, Book of the Artists (1867), Henry Tuckerman remarked that Mary Smith's work was "remarkable for grace, fidelity, and skill in the delineation of the feathered tribe-her special branch." At the Edgehill estate, she raised and nurtured the beloved chickens she portrayed from nature, often incorporating landscape or still-life elements, as in this small table-top composition of a chick and a lovely bouquet of flowers-all painted in rich and delicate tones and textures. (RS)

Biography courtesy of The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/charleston