John Richard Coke Smyth was a British artist and traveller. Smyth produced a few collections of prints from his travels. A few works arose out of a visit to Constantinople where he collaborated with the noted Orientalist painter, John Frederick Lewis to produce several works on Turkey and Constantinople.

His father was Richard Smyth and his mother was Elizabeth Coke. He traveled to Constantinople in 1856 and 1857.

In 1838, John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham accepted the post of Governor-General of North America, and arrived in Quebec with his family and an entourage of about twenty people.

Several visual documents remain from this sojourn. These include work by Lady Mary Louisa Lambton, by the painter John Richard Coke Smyth (1808-1882), whom Lord Durham had engaged to teach drawing to his family, and by the amateur watercolorist, Katherine Ellice, (1814-1864), wife of Edward Ellice, secretary to the Governor."

After his return to England, he sketched the illustrations of the costumes that were used to make the prints for Souvenir of the bal costume : given by her most gracious majesty Queen Victoria, at Buckingham Palace, May 12, 1842. The book commemorated a fancy ball given by Queen Victoria in 1842.