Background
Xanthus was born on February 26, 1839 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Russell Smith and Mary Priscilla (Wilson) Smith.
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Xanthus was born on February 26, 1839 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Russell Smith and Mary Priscilla (Wilson) Smith.
Educated at home and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied medicine from 1856 to 1858 and gave particular attention to anatomy, he had his art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, at the Royal Academy in London, and in Europe.
Smith received his first commission for a landscape at sixteen. Although listed in the family Bible as Xanthus Russell Smith he did not use his middle name until he enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he served under Samuel Francis du Pont and took part in Farragut's operations during the capture of Mobile.
After the war he painted pictures of many important naval engagements and land battles. Among these are "Surrender of the Tennessee", "Sinking of the Cumberland" and "Attack on Fort Fisher" in the permanent collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; "Monitor and Merrimac" and "Kearsage and Alabama" in the Union League of Philadelphia; and "Pickett's Last Charge at Gettysburg" in the John Wanamaker collection. He also painted a picture of "John Burns' July First at Gettysburg, " a portrait of John Burns in civilian dress, and portraits from life of Maj. Francis Wister, Gen. Rush Shippen Huidekoper, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
Private collectors acquired many of his landscapes and marines, the latter painted off the Maine coast, where he maintained a summer home on an island in Casco Bay. In winter he lived at Edgehill, Pennsylvania, and worked in his Philadelphia studio, turning especially to portraiture in his last years. After an illness of several years he died at his home in Edgehill and was buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery.
On June 19, 1879, he married Mary Binder, daughter of George A. Binder of Philadelphia, by whom he had a daughter and two sons.