The face of Joshua Smith!!

September 28, 2011 at 7:44 am (people, portraits and paintings, research) (bbc your paintings, erle stoke park, joshua smith of erle stoke park, maggs rare books, prexiepost, public catalogue foundation, robertsonbruce, tring park school)

Thanks to a reader giving me a heads up on a bookplate, I literally stumbled upon this image — and the connotation is that this portrait is JOSHUA SMITH of ERLE STOKE PARK.

Really???

I’ve emailed the seller to find out whatEVER info might have led eBay seller Prexiepost or Photobucket’s RobertsonBruce to think — or know — this is a portrait of my Joshua. But if this little “pitch” here helps to answer that question also, I pitch away!

On the hunt for the library of Erle Stoke’s bookplate, I came across these “finds,” the first about a book belonging to Joshua — now, thanks to Mike H. at Tring Park School, I have Joshua’s will and can see how he divided his property (once I decipher the extremely terrible hand of the probate copywriter!):

• Maggs Rare Books is selling a copy (£800) of Boswell’s An Account of Corsica (who knew Joshua read any of Boswell’s writings?!? fascinating!!). The listing says “Contemporary bookplate of Joshua Smith of Stoke Park, Wiltshire.”
• Neale’s Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen (1823) which includes Earl Stoke Park

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BREAKING UPDATE even before the post is published: It IS Joshua!!!!!