John Rowson Smith studied under his father, John Rubens Smith, whose pupils later included Sanford Robinson Gifford. The elder Smith was primarily an engraver and lithographer, but his son became a scenery painter, working after 1832 in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, and other cities. About the end of the 1830s, Smith took up panoramic painting, and his most successful example, a panorama of the Mississippi River, was exhibited in both the United States and Europe. He went to Europe in 1848 and afterward settled in New Jersey, where he painted scenery for theaters in New York and the South.

Reference
New Hampshire Scenery