CLARICE SMITH:POWER & GRACE

Coming H

ome Series: Edw

ard Troye (1808-1874) Oct. 1, 2014 -M

ar. 29, 2015 National Sporting Library &

Museum

Coming Home SeriesEdward Troye (1808-1874)

NATIONAL SPORTING LIBRARY & MUSEUMMiddleburg, Virginia

2014

Coming Home SeriesEdward Troye (1808-1874)

Edward Troye and His Biographers:The Archives of Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith

October 1, 2014 – February 22, 2015 | Forrest E. Mars Sr. Exhibit Hall

Faithfulness to Nature: Paintings by Edward TroyeOctober 26, 2014 – March 29, 2015 | Museum

Table of Contents

Preface ixMelanie Leigh Mathewes

Foreword xiManuel H. Johnson

Edward Troye and His Biographers: The Archives of Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith 15Martha Wolfe

Edward Troye’s Obituary 30

Faithfulness to Nature: Paintings by Edward Troye 33Claudia Pfeiffer Plates 49

Illustration Details & Credits 134

Endnotes 141

Bibliography 143

Index 144

Foreword xi

ForewordManuel H. Johnson | Chairman of the Board, National Sporting Library & Museum

The Coming Home Series, an exciting new program developed

at the National Sporting Library & Museum, pairs one of our John H.

Daniels Fellows with NSLM curators to research the Library’s ex-

tensive holdings and plan exhibitions and publication projects. The

first in this series is a focus on the nineteenth century animal artist,

Edward Troye (1808-1874). His work in particular epitomizes the aim

of the series to mine some of the most important holdings of the

Library.

Held here in the archives are the papers and research of two

eminent sporting scholars, Harry Worcester Smith (1865-1945) and

Alexander Mackay-Smith (1903-1998) who were instrumental in

bringing Troye’s role in early American art to light in the twentieth

century. As an artist, Troye’s paintings were commissioned all across

the country by the leading Thoroughbred breeders and owners of

the mid-nineteenth century. As a chronicler of American bloodlines,

reproductions and reviews of Troye’s imagery became staples of

popular turf and field magazines of the era. This combination of

printed material and original paintings embodies NSLM’s mission

to preserve, promote, and share the literature, art, and culture of turf

and field sports.

Martha Wolfe, a 2012/2013 John H. Daniels Fellow, returned

to our archives during the first half of this year to work on her essay,

Edward Troye and His Biographers: The Archives of Harry Worcester Smith

and Alexander Mackay-Smith, which is included in this catalogue.

From her research, the NSLM Curatorial Department developed an

exhibition with the same title featuring paintings, prints, papers,

and ephemera in the Forrest E. Mars, Sr. Exhibit Hall, on view in the

Library until February 22, 2015. Most of the items on display are from

NSLM collections, with the inclusion of a few key loans. One loan

from the Yale Center for British Art library is a rare book entitled

Race Horses of America (First series) by Edward Troye, printed in 1867,

and bound by Worcester Smith with a foreword he wrote in 1930.

The exhibition and Wolfe’s in-depth essay bring to life the incredible

story of how Worcester Smith rediscovered Troye’s art and Mackay-

Smith brought his scholarship to completion with the publication

of his expansive biography and catalogue of Troye’s artwork, Race

Forewordxii

Horses of America 1832-1872: Portraits and Other Paintings by Edward

Troye, in 1981.

The NSLM’s George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Curator Claudia Pfeiffer

developed her essay for the Museum exhibition Faithfulness to Nature:

Paintings by Edward Troye, relying heavily on Mackay-Smith’s defini-

tive book, Wolfe’s research, and other contemporary sources. With

the assistance of NSLM Museum Exhibitions and Collections Chair

F. Turner Reuter, Jr., forty-two important paintings and sketches

have been gathered from public and private collections, including:

The Jockey Club, Bethany College, Yale Center for British Arts, Vir-

ginia Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Racing and Hall of

Fame, Pebble Hill Plantation, and the NSLM.

This major exhibition on view through March 29, 2015, ap-

peals to both enthusiasts of turf and field sports and American

sporting art. It develops a narrative of Troye’s immense skill as a

naturalist observer and painter of animals who attained great suc-

cess and recognition among the leaders of the horse racing industry

in a time when American art was still maturing. Among the works

that have been brought together are Donkey and Goat, 1823, a sensitive

charcoal study completed by Troye when he was just fifteen years old

before immigrating to the United States; portraits of foundational

Thoroughbreds such as American Eclipse, Henry, Glencoe, and

Boston; Troye’s famous self portrait painted while he was in Mobile,

Alabama; two acclaimed mural-sized paintings, A Bazaar in Damas-

cus, 1856, and Syrian Ploughman, 1856; and his final painting, Waverly,

1872.

Bringing material of such magnitude “home” to the National

Sporting Library & Museum is thrilling, for both our staff and visi-

tors. It brings a fresh perspective to the artist and the broad scope

of his work. We hope you enjoy the first of what promises to be an

innovative series.

Edward Troye and His Biographers 15

Edward Troye and His BiographersThe Archives of Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith

Martha Wolfe | National Sporting Library & Museum John H. Daniels Fellow

E dward Troye’s transcribed diary of his trip to the Holy

Land in 1855 is held in the National Sporting Library &

Museum’s (NSLM) archives. Also in the archives are Harry Worcester

Smith’s papers, which chronicle his quest for Troye’s movements and

muses a half-century later. And it was in the archives, within Harry

Worcester Smith’s papers, that Alexander Mackay-Smith found in-

spiration to write what is still considered the definitive text on Amer-

ica’s greatest animal portraitist: The Race Horses of America 1832-1872:

Portraits and Other Paintings by Edward Troye (The National Museum

of Racing, 1981). Here in the archives, in boxes stacked nearly to the

ceiling, is the story of three men whose lives spanned two centuries,

whose interests overlapped and whose souls were kindred: artist

Edward Troye (1808-1874), the indomitable sportsman Harry Worces-

ter Smith (1864-1945) and scholar, chronicler and author Alexander

Mackay-Smith (1903-1998).

Edward Troye had taken the trip of his lifetime to the Dead

“I reached the Dead Sea the 6th of March 1856 having been there the day before on my way to Jerico [sic]. We pitched our tent on the 6th and I commenced painting on the 7th and continued painting until the 19th … Nothing can be more dreary…The evaporation going on is so great as to produce quite a hazyness [sic] preventing the distance from be-ing clearly seen, while the atmosphere presents a foggy appearance.”

Edward Troye and His Biographers 21

Smith began by contacting the Post Masters in every little

hometown of Troye’s and his patrons’ families, asking for informa-

tion of the whereabouts of

their living relatives. Word of

his quest got around, which

must have set off a firestorm

of speculation on the value

of Troye’s work. “Some few

weeks ago,” Mr. J. Churchill

Newcomb, editor of The Chase

Magazine writes to Smith,

“while motoring in the Blue

Grass I came across a very odd

character who had heard of

your interest in Troye paint-

ings, so he packed his kit and

went down to the far South, to

see if he could also unearth any

unknown relics in that part of

the country. He returned with

six Troyes which he tells me

you have never seen…I cannot

remember the name nor the address of the little Scotchman that had

the six, but I am enough of a countryman to get back to him again

and if you are interested, I will obtain further information when I

next am in that part of the Blue Grass.”

Another correspondent, Tom

Lindsey of Louisville, Kentucky

writes: “The Singleton that

I had was 26 x 32 inches in

size and in perfect condition,

figure of horse only. Since

receiving your letter, have

purchased one of Limington

and one of Lexington [plates

35 & 36], both 25 x 30 inches,

however, within the last week

have sold all three. Am now

after a small head of horse at

watering-trough…”9 One series

of correspondences between

Smith and the Lucius P. Brown

family of Ewell Farm in Spring

Hill, Tennessee, in which

Smith attempts to secure two

photographs for documenta-

tion, spans nearly a decade between March, 1930 and November, 1938.

In September, 1924, C. E. Marvin, commissioner of Kentucky’s De-

fig. 6. Notes referencing Edward Troye paintings that Harry Worcester Smith catalogued during his visit to the home of Keene Richards’ widow, c. 1920National Sporting Library & Museum, Harry Worcester Smith Archives

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye24

A lexander Mackay-Smith met Harry Worcester Smith on the

hunt field in Virginia’s Loudoun Valley late in the 1930s. Mack-

ay-Smith writes about his friend: “He was then 70 years old, had only

half of one lung in working order, and could gallop for not more than

a mile or two…”13

“Who will continue my accumulation of thought, feeling and

art?” Harry Worcester Smith mused, in a hand-written note on the

back of an envelope found framed in the National Sporting Library &

Museum’s archives. No date is given. When did he transcribe his fear

that all he had done, contemplated, worked for and completed would

go unnoticed, or worse, forgotten? [fig. 1]

March 23, 1945, Harry Worcester Smith was helping Mrs. John

Osgood Blanchard, (Elizabeth Amis Cameron Blanchard) author of

The Life and Times of Sir Archie [Sir Archy]: the story of America’s greatest

thoroughbred, 1805-1833, plan “one of her celebrated Sporting Break-

fasts.”14 The guest list includes “Mr. A. Mackay-Smith, Master Blue

Ridge Hunt, studious collector and historian, and Mrs. A. Mackay-

Smith, successful breeder of ponies, etc.” The breakfast was to take

place April 10. Smith died on the sixth. Carvel Collins, who compiled

a portfolio of engravings, most of which are based on Troye’s paint-

ings, titled The American Sporting Gallery: Portraits of American Horses

from Spirit of the Times 1839-1844, wrote to Alexander Mackay-Smith on

April 11, “Mr. Harry Worcester Smith on the day before he died gave

me his compliments on your interest and skill in historical research

Fig. 8. Wallace Wilson Nall (American 1923 – 2003)after a painting by Jean Bowman (American, 1917 – 1994)Alexander MacKay-Smith, 1955, painted 1999oil on canvas, 44 x 35 ½ inchesNational Sporting Library & MuseumGift of an anonymous donor

Faithfulness to Nature 35

Faithfulness to Nature Paintings by Edward Troye

Claudia Pfeiffer | George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Curator, National Sporting Library & Museum

Two draft pages of Edward Troye’s obituary written in the

flowing handwriting of Alexander Keene Richards on July 25, 1874,

the morning of the artist’s passing, are held in the archives of the

National Sporting Library & Museum. It is a daunting task to craft a

testimony to someone’s life and career for posterity. In the final ver-

sion which appeared in Richard’s hometown paper, The Weekly Times,

he noted, “Troye’s paintings were studies from nature, faithful to a

fault, but never mechanical. He was no imitator. He had a style of

his own, and often said it was his head that painted his pictures, not

his hand.” 2 The concept of presenting a realistic interpretation of an

observed subject within its environment, also known as naturalism,

had gained momentum in art. Troye would finally attain recogni-

tion for his significant contributions to animal, sporting, and early

American art in the twentieth century, but most profoundly he was a

gifted naturalist painter.

Richards was Troye’s champion in life and in death. He was a

loyal patron and friend for thirty years from the time the artist traveled

with him to purchase Arabian horses from the Bedouins until Troye died

at Richards’ Blue Grass Park in Georgetown, Kentucky. Richards had

even built a studio for him there in the last years of his life. The phrasing

of the obituary echoes writings by Troye in his 1856 Oriental Paintings

pamphlet which accompanied the masterworks he created on com-

mission for Richards while they were in the Middle East:

Edward Troye, the Artist, was selected by a gentleman of the South to transfer from nature, and true to nature, the scenes which these paintings represent…He has followed his profession in this country for more than twenty years; and his faithful-ness to nature in all his delineations is well known to his many patrons throughout this country…The Artist, in his execution of the work, claims no merit beyond a faithful representation of Nature, having avoided all creations of his own imagination…”3

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye36

In the pamphlet Troye also boasted, “The Artist was Educated

in London and Had the Advantage of the Best Masters.” He noted

that “he commenced his profession as an animal painter after the

style of Stubbs and Sartorius” but never expanded on who his teach-

ers were. 4 It can, however, be safely assumed that Troye’s innate

talents were encouraged by his father, Jean-Baptiste de Troy, a Swiss

sculptor of French descent.

Edward Troye was born Edouard de Troy on July 12, 1808, in

Lausanne, Switzerland. His mother died when he was an infant, and

his father brought him and his three siblings to London, where they

were raised in the French Quarter. They all pursued the arts. Troye’s

brother Charles de Troy became a painter active in Antwerp; one

sister, Marie de Troy Thirion, sculpted medals; and the other, Esper-

ance Paligi, became a musician and the first woman to be accepted

into the Paris Conservatory of Music. The young Troye proved his

talent as an animal artist at a young age. Donkey and Goat, 1823 [plate

1], a sensitively-executed charcoal study, is his earliest known surviv-

ing work and displays artistic maturity well beyond his fifteen years.

Additionally, the signature, “E. Troye.” is evidence that the

artist had already anglicized his name to Edward Troye prior to

immigrating to the United States. Troye arrived in Philadelphia on

October 5, 1831 at the age of 23. The largest city in the United States

at the time, it was already a major cultural center attracting interna-

tional artists to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, established

in 1805. In May 1832, within six months of his arrival, three of Troye’s

paintings were accepted for exhibition at the venerable institution:

Attack of a Lion Upon a Horse, likely inspired by George Stubbs; Bear

Hunting and Attack, after a painting by Franz Snyders (Flemish, 1579 –

1657), and Portraits of a Celebrated Horse and His Rider.

There is no recorded description of the latter composition

other than the title, but it is likely that this work garnered him at-

tention and set him on his path as an equine portraitist. He was in

impressive company. Others who exhibited in 1832 were historical

painter Benjamin West, portraitist Gilbert Stuart, and portrait en-

graver John Sartain.

While Keene Richards’ obituary notes that Troye was first

employed in the “Art Department of Sartain’s Magazine,” John Sartain

did not start Sartain’s Union Magazine until 1848. The two, however, had

much in common and traveled in the same circles. The artists were the

same age, both emigrated from England, and each moved to the United

States within one year of each other. By the time Troye arrived, Sartain

was one of the top mezzotinters in Philadelphia. In the May 1832 exhibi-

tion, Sartain exhibited five engravings after portrait paintings, includ-

ing a self-portrait by English artist Thomas Lawrence and two composi-

tions by Academy Chairman Thomas Sully. One of these was a portrait

of Nicholas Biddle, brother-in-law and silent breeding partner of Troye’s

first patron, race horse owner John Charles Craig. It is highly likely that

Craig and Troye became acquainted through the exhibition.5

Faithfulness to Nature 37

Troye’s artwork must have stood out. In the catalog he was

listed as a “Painter of Animals etc.” The prevalence of portraits,

epic scenes, and mythical subjects was beginning to make room for

portrayals of landscapes and animals. According to Anna Wells Rut-

ledge who compiled the Academy’s cumulative record of exhibition

catalogs from 1807 to 1870: “The works exhibited at the Pennsylvania

Academy of Fine Arts can be classified briefly as, one ‘Old Masters’;

two ‘Great Exhibition Paintings’; three, fashionable, contemporary

genre and landscape, American and European; and, four, endless

portraits”6

It was an innovative time in the international art scene. The

tenets of naturalism in England and France had already produced

some of the finest animal and sporting artists by the beginning of

the nineteenth century. Although American painter Benjamin West

was an innovator, gaining recognition abroad by becoming the

second President of the Royal Academy in London, American art was

still defined by the influence of artists who trained in European cen-

ters and came to the United States. A truly American artistic expres-

sion originating from within its borders was just beginning to take

shape. 7

The 1832 exhibition was the only time that Troye exhibited at

the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. There is no evidence that he

tried to enter works again, and it is unlikely that his paintings would

have been rejected for exhibition, in light of contemporaries who

exhibited. For example, Henri DeLattre, a respected French painter

who worked in America and was not regarded as highly as Troye

by connoisseurs of sporting art and art historians, exhibited at the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, National Academy of Design in

New York, Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, and at the Paris

Salon in France. It is more likely that Troye no longer saw the need

to exhibit after his introduction to the flood of patrons who would

support him for the rest of his career. 8

fig. 11. Henri DeLattre (French, 1801 - 1876)Carriage Horse with a Docked Tail, 1854oil on board, 8 x 10 inchesNational Sporting Library & Museum,Gift of the Family of Duffy Rathburn, 2009

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye50

Faithfulness to Nature 51

Plate 1

Donkey and Goat, 1823charcoal on paper 13 x 18 ¾ inches National Sporting Library & MuseumGift of Ms. Elizabeth J. D. Jeffords, 2008

While the work is signed with Troye’s anglicized name, it is inscribed with the location “8

Soho Square” and the date in French, “13 7bre [July] 1823.” The address is in the heart of the French

quarter of London that had once housed the Soho Academy until 1805. Artists such as Thomas

Rowlandson and J.M.W. Turner had attended, but it had long since folded by 1823 when Troye,

at the age of fifteen, drew the donkey and goat with expressive eyes and subtle shading. Troye

usually sketched from life. Quite possibly he saw the animals at the square. Plate 22 of John B.

Papworth’s series of engravings, Select Views of London, published in 1816, depicts farm animals

being herded through the Soho Square next to its park, Soho Square Gardens.

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye66

Plate 9

American Eclipse, 1834oil on canvas 24 ½ x 29 ¾ inches The Jockey Club

This vibrant painting of American Eclipse, by Duroc, out of Miller’s Damsel, done in 1834

has a similar background to the study from life Troye sketched of the horse standing to stud

at Snedecker’s farm on Long Island [fig. 13]. This version of the famous race horse American

Eclipse was reproduced in the New York Sporting Magazine in September 1834. The first oil paint-

ing completed of the Thoroughbred in April 1834 was done for either Colonel William Ransom

Johnson or Walter Livingston who had bought American Eclipse at auction for $8,050 in 1828. In

the same public auction, Henry, the famed rival in the May 1823 match race, was purchased by

Livingston’s cousin, Robert Livingston Stevens.

The great match race between American Eclipse and Henry in May 1823 marked the resur-

gence of horse racing in this country after the War of 1812 and a twelve-year ban on racing driven

by anti-gambling sentiment. With the opening of the Union Race Course on Long Island in 1821,

American Eclipse was brought out of retirement to serve as the Northern contender for a series of

match races against various Southern horses. This culminated in the May 1823 race at the Union

Race Course. The race had become legendary in horse racing by the time Troye painted the iconic

horses a decade later.

Faithfulness to Nature 67

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye92

Plate 22

Self-Portrait, 1852oil on canvas 38 x 54 ¼ inches Yale University Art Gallery, Whitney Collections of Sporting Art, given in memory of Harry Payne Whitney, B.A. 1894, and Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898 by Francis P. Garvan, B.A. 1897, M.A. (Hon.) 1922

Completed November 8, 1852, Troye presented the painting to his niece and her husband.

The self-portrait is another iconic work completed during his time in Alabama. The forty-four

year old artist is shown dapperly dressed and sits atop a carriage pulled by a gray, contrasted

against a lush green tree line. The horse is presented in a foreshortened perspective, showing

the artist’s mastery in portraying depth. The composition is anchored at right with the vertical

line of the building impeding the eye from leaving the canvas with a glance. The boy at left holds

the reins of a bay with a saddle and blanket on the ground. Buildings are seen in the distance.

Faithfulness to Nature 93

Coming Home Series: Edward Troye100

Plate 26

A Bazaar in Damascus, 1856oil on canvas 84 x 64 inches Collection of Bethany College, Bethany, WV

In July 1856 Keene Richards wrote a letter to the Spirit of the Times describing the figures

in the Bazaar in Damascus:

In this painting all of the Eastern costumes are introduced; Bedouins, with graceful abbas [long garment] and rich keffiahs [head scarves], the Turk and Turkish soldier, a Syrian Priest, the veiled women with their everlasting white gowns and yellow morocco boots, the magnificently dressed Albanian [sic] officer on horseback, and lastly the merchants sitting in theirs stalls in various attitudes… These, with other figures, make up a picture without confusion, and so true to nature that I shall never behold it without feeling myself trans-ported to the spot.75

Faithfulness to Nature 101

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Faithfulness to Nature 133

Plate 38

Waverly, 1872oil on canvas25 x 30 inchesCollection of Lawrence and Rene Kurzius

The last known painting by Troye was completed in September 1872, two years before he

died. The portrait of the brown stallion Waverly, by imported Australian, out of imported Cicily

Jopson, was commissioned by owner James A. Grimstead of “Walnut Hill Stud” in Lexington,

Kentucky. Depicted in a landscape that is much more fully defined than many of Troye’s com-

positions, to one side of Waverly is a group of horses, two frolicking; to the right are a stable and

tree balancing the composition. Mackay-Smith wrote, “It was characteristic of the artist that

only after the completion of a masterpiece was he content to put down his palette and brushes

and to end his career as an artist.”97