Edward Allan Schmidt was a painter of genre and landscapes and, like so many artists working in the last century, much of what we know about Schmidt we glean from the work itself.

His work is extremely rare to find, as he was not a prolific painter, probably due to the fact that he paid the greatest attention to detail in his paintings. Although always modest in size his work would undoubtedly have taken a very long time to complete. His fastidious attention to detail echoes some of the earlier seventeenth century Dutch masters’ work such as Jan Brueghel (1568-1625) and Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621). More recently, however, only the best works by such names as Belgian Gerard Portielje (1856-1929) and the Englishman, Charles Spencelayh (1865-1958) can be compared.

Originally of German extraction, Schmidt exhibited three paintings at the Royal Academy in London between 1868 and 1877, during which time he registered himself under two London addresses: 4 Craven Hill, Bayswater and 41 Collingham Place. The paintings were: “The Hunting Companion” (no.145, 1868), “An Old Woman” (no.969, 1876) and “A Trick Too Many” (no.38, 1877).