Caspar Smits

Caspar Smits, also known as Ludowyk Smits or Gaspar Smitz, with the surname sometimes spelt "Smith", and the Latin form "Casparus" sometimes used (1635–probably 1688), was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose main interest today is that he was one of the first painters of any stature to work in Ireland, where he probably moved in the 1660s and died around 1688.

[1] According to Arnold Houbraken he was called Ludowyk Smits, nicknamed Hartkamp, and was the teacher of the painters Simon Germyn and possibly Garret Morphy.

[3] He started by making "penitent Maria Magdalenes", but made his living primarily by painting fruit and flower still lifes in the manner of Jan Davidsz de Heem and Willem van Aelst.

The Gould/Walpole/Virtue Dictionary of Artists claims that "an English gentlewoman, of an agreeable person, who passed for his wife, was his model for all the Magdalens he painted".

However, his final entry, for 1688, in the guild records is annotated mort ("dead") in the margin, and it is thought more likely that he died around then.