Edward Troye
American, born Switzerland
(Lausanne, Switzerland, 1808 – 1874, Georgetown, Kentucky)
In early 19th-century America the vast majority of trained fine artists made their living as portraitists, primarily recording members of the wealthy agrarian or merchant classes for posterity before the advent of photography. Those who sought to gain greater fame for their work, and engage with more eclectic subject matter, were inevitably drawn to study in Europe, since fine art training was still in its infancy in the new Republic.
One niche category in both European and American art beginning in the 18th century was that of animal painting, and it encompassed the even more distinct area of sporting art which focused on depicting animals, mostly those associated with horse racing, hunting, or animal husbandry competitions. The best-known practitioner in that genre was the British artist George Stubbs (1724—1806) who researched and published The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766 based on his own careful dissections and drawings intended to assist other artists in making accurate depictions of horses at rest and in motion.
The work of Stubbs and other European painters of animal subjects undoubtedly became the basis of study for the young Edward Troye. (1) Troye was born in 1808 into the family of a French artist, Jean Baptiste de Troy, living in exile in Geneva, Switzerland. Troye’s mother died when he was an infant, and his father moved the family to London where Edward and his three siblings were all educated in the fine arts and music. In a pamphlet written by Troye to accompany an exhibition of his work in 1857-58, Troye wrote of his early training: “The artist was educated in London, and had the advantage of the best masters. He commenced his profession as an animal painter after the style of Stubbs and (John Nost) Sartorius (1759-1828).” (2)
In 1828 he sailed for Jamaica, where he spent two years employed on a sugar plantation before poor health led him to travel on to Philadelphia in 1831 and pursue his career as a painter. His first formal exhibition was the Twenty-First Annual Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1832, where he exhibited three animal subjects. He also found employment with the art department at “Sartain’s” magazine for a time, however he relatively quickly began to obtain commissions to paint both livestock and prize-winning race horses which were the property of prominent and wealthy breeders.
The support of these patrons allowed Troye to establish himself as the preeminent painter of thoroughbred horses, traveling along the eastern seaboard and down into the Gulf South pursuing commissions for the depiction of these often-famous prize winners and breeding stock. He painted more than 350 works between about 1837 and his death in 1874.
The “Sport of Kings” in the 19th-century South
In the 1830s, horse racing was of major interest and an important pastime for the wealthy in the new Republic. The stud farms for breeding fine thoroughbreds were found particularly in the rural South, where wealth was in the hands of landowners whose plantations produced the South’s predominant commodity, cotton, which was exported to factories in the Northeast and Europe. The center of racing in the colonial period was Virginia, however by the early 19th century the Gulf South states and Kentucky were homes to many of the preeminent racing stables of America. Therefore, it was inevitable that the Troye would make his way South to secure the commissions to make paintings of the most famous thoroughbreds of the day.
While initially establishing himself in Lexington, Kentucky, by 1836 he was regularly visiting the racing stables of Alabama, particularly that of Colonel John Crowell at Fort Mitchell in Randolph County where he painted six of the Colonel’s most successful race winners. He also painted one of America’s most famous racehorses, Leviathan, for James Jackson at his farm located at Forks of Cypress in north Alabama near Muscle Shoals. There were important race tracks in most of Alabama’s populous areas of settlement, including Huntsville, Montgomery, Selma, Mt. Meigs, Hayneville, Livingston, Greensboro and Jacksonville, north of Mobile. In 1839, with horse racing flourishing as a source of popular interest and participation, Troye married Cornelia Vandegraff, a Kentuckian who had family ties to Alabama. In 1849 he, his wife, and five-year old daughter Anna settled for about six years near Mobile, where the artist took a position teaching drawing and French at Spring Hill College.
It was during this interlude in which the artist was settled with his family and had income provided by the College, that he expanded his practice of painting animals to integrate portraits commissioned by patrons such as William A. Dawson who engaged the artist to make portraits of his young children.
(1) The major source for the biography and career of Edward Troye is Alexander Mackay-Smith, The Race Horses of America, 1832-1872, Portraits and Other Paintings by Edward Troye (Saratoga Springs, NY: The National Museum of Racing, 1981).
(2) Edward Troye, Troye’s Oriental Paintings, 1857-1858. A copy is found in the MMFA Artist’s Files.
The Dawson Family at Carolina Hall
William A. Dawson was born in Charleston in 1806, and moved to Spring Hill outside of Mobile sometime before 1832, at which time he began construction on his family home then known as Carolina Hall, which was completed by 1840. Dawson was a cotton factor, that is an agent who purchased cotton from planters for shipment to distant markets in the Northeast or in England. He married a Scots woman, Jane Ogilvie in 1842, and they had eight children, beginning with two sons born in 1843 and 1845. Like most of Troye’s patrons, Dawson was very wealthy, his home was designed in the style of Georgian townhouses common in Charleston, and according to census records he owned at least 15 enslaved individuals who undoubtedly worked in maintaining this property. It would have been customary for a man of his wealth and position in commerce and society to commission portraits of his family for display in his home, and Troye is known to have painted at least three portraits as records of Dawson’s children, including this painting of the two oldest sons, William and John. (3)
The portraits of the Dawson children are distinctive in that each included the representation of animals that were a part of the Dawson household. The title of this portrait also includes the names of the animals depicted. William, age 7, sits on what was most likely a family riding horse, Jack, and his younger brother John, age 5, stands behind the family retriever, Nimrod. A greyhound (in that period called a Courser), Silky, reclines comfortably, but is clearly on alert, beside Nimrod. The artist sought to portray the animals with accuracy, and to project the distinctive appearances of both children and animals.
Its title also indicates that the portrait was made on the grounds of the Dawson family home, which in the 19th century was situated on some 100 acres of property. Spring Hill was an enclave of wealthy estates settled west of Mobile at an elevation and distance from the coast where breezes would have moderated the summer’s heat and humidity. In Troye’s more typical paintings of racehorses the background is not usually elaborated as it is here, and the fact that it is suggests that it was not just Dawson’s heirs and domestic animals that the artist was depicting, but also his ownership of extensive and valuable real estate as well.
Upon William A. Dawson’s death in 1885, the family portraits passed to his five living children, “to be kept together or divided among them as they may wish.” (4) His oldest son, William, is recorded as having served in a Confederate cavalry regiment (Murphy’s Battalion Alabama Cavalry, Company B) enlisting in March of 1862, but, by November of that year, he had been furloughed due to illness. (5) William married in 1877 and had a son, Henry, prior to his death sometime between 1880 and 1884. The younger son, John, married in 1873 and had three children. John also pre-deceased his father, dying in 1882. The family home, Carolina Hall, was sold in 1883, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in January of 1973.
(3) In addition to this portrait of his two oldest sons, Troye painted a portrait of his daughter, Catherine (called Kitty), which is now in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5488. He also painted a third work depicting two younger sons, which is now unlocated but is described in Alexander MacKay-Smith, p.155.
(4) Alabama, U.S. Wills and Probate Records 1753-1999 (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8799/images/0007)
(5) See Alabama Department of Archives and History, Civil War Database, http://archives.alabama.gov/civilwar for the record of W O Dawson.
American, born Switzerland
(Lausanne, Switzerland, 1808 – 1874, Georgetown, Kentucky)
In early 19th-century America the vast majority of trained fine artists made their living as portraitists, primarily recording members of the wealthy agrarian or merchant classes for posterity before the advent of photography. Those who sought to gain greater fame for their work, and engage with more eclectic subject matter, were inevitably drawn to study in Europe, since fine art training was still in its infancy in the new Republic.
One niche category in both European and American art beginning in the 18th century was that of animal painting, and it encompassed the even more distinct area of sporting art which focused on depicting animals, mostly those associated with horse racing, hunting, or animal husbandry competitions. The best-known practitioner in that genre was the British artist George Stubbs (1724—1806) who researched and published The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766 based on his own careful dissections and drawings intended to assist other artists in making accurate depictions of horses at rest and in motion.
The work of Stubbs and other European painters of animal subjects undoubtedly became the basis of study for the young Edward Troye. (1) Troye was born in 1808 into the family of a French artist, Jean Baptiste de Troy, living in exile in Geneva, Switzerland. Troye’s mother died when he was an infant, and his father moved the family to London where Edward and his three siblings were all educated in the fine arts and music. In a pamphlet written by Troye to accompany an exhibition of his work in 1857-58, Troye wrote of his early training: “The artist was educated in London, and had the advantage of the best masters. He commenced his profession as an animal painter after the style of Stubbs and (John Nost) Sartorius (1759-1828).” (2)
In 1828 he sailed for Jamaica, where he spent two years employed on a sugar plantation before poor health led him to travel on to Philadelphia in 1831 and pursue his career as a painter. His first formal exhibition was the Twenty-First Annual Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1832, where he exhibited three animal subjects. He also found employment with the art department at “Sartain’s” magazine for a time, however he relatively quickly began to obtain commissions to paint both livestock and prize-winning race horses which were the property of prominent and wealthy breeders.
The support of these patrons allowed Troye to establish himself as the preeminent painter of thoroughbred horses, traveling along the eastern seaboard and down into the Gulf South pursuing commissions for the depiction of these often-famous prize winners and breeding stock. He painted more than 350 works between about 1837 and his death in 1874.
The “Sport of Kings” in the 19th-century South
In the 1830s, horse racing was of major interest and an important pastime for the wealthy in the new Republic. The stud farms for breeding fine thoroughbreds were found particularly in the rural South, where wealth was in the hands of landowners whose plantations produced the South’s predominant commodity, cotton, which was exported to factories in the Northeast and Europe. The center of racing in the colonial period was Virginia, however by the early 19th century the Gulf South states and Kentucky were homes to many of the preeminent racing stables of America. Therefore, it was inevitable that the Troye would make his way South to secure the commissions to make paintings of the most famous thoroughbreds of the day.
While initially establishing himself in Lexington, Kentucky, by 1836 he was regularly visiting the racing stables of Alabama, particularly that of Colonel John Crowell at Fort Mitchell in Randolph County where he painted six of the Colonel’s most successful race winners. He also painted one of America’s most famous racehorses, Leviathan, for James Jackson at his farm located at Forks of Cypress in north Alabama near Muscle Shoals. There were important race tracks in most of Alabama’s populous areas of settlement, including Huntsville, Montgomery, Selma, Mt. Meigs, Hayneville, Livingston, Greensboro and Jacksonville, north of Mobile. In 1839, with horse racing flourishing as a source of popular interest and participation, Troye married Cornelia Vandegraff, a Kentuckian who had family ties to Alabama. In 1849 he, his wife, and five-year old daughter Anna settled for about six years near Mobile, where the artist took a position teaching drawing and French at Spring Hill College.
It was during this interlude in which the artist was settled with his family and had income provided by the College, that he expanded his practice of painting animals to integrate portraits commissioned by patrons such as William A. Dawson who engaged the artist to make portraits of his young children.
(1) The major source for the biography and career of Edward Troye is Alexander Mackay-Smith, The Race Horses of America, 1832-1872, Portraits and Other Paintings by Edward Troye (Saratoga Springs, NY: The National Museum of Racing, 1981).
(2) Edward Troye, Troye’s Oriental Paintings, 1857-1858. A copy is found in the MMFA Artist’s Files.
The Dawson Family at Carolina Hall
William A. Dawson was born in Charleston in 1806, and moved to Spring Hill outside of Mobile sometime before 1832, at which time he began construction on his family home then known as Carolina Hall, which was completed by 1840. Dawson was a cotton factor, that is an agent who purchased cotton from planters for shipment to distant markets in the Northeast or in England. He married a Scots woman, Jane Ogilvie in 1842, and they had eight children, beginning with two sons born in 1843 and 1845. Like most of Troye’s patrons, Dawson was very wealthy, his home was designed in the style of Georgian townhouses common in Charleston, and according to census records he owned at least 15 enslaved individuals who undoubtedly worked in maintaining this property. It would have been customary for a man of his wealth and position in commerce and society to commission portraits of his family for display in his home, and Troye is known to have painted at least three portraits as records of Dawson’s children, including this painting of the two oldest sons, William and John. (3)
The portraits of the Dawson children are distinctive in that each included the representation of animals that were a part of the Dawson household. The title of this portrait also includes the names of the animals depicted. William, age 7, sits on what was most likely a family riding horse, Jack, and his younger brother John, age 5, stands behind the family retriever, Nimrod. A greyhound (in that period called a Courser), Silky, reclines comfortably, but is clearly on alert, beside Nimrod. The artist sought to portray the animals with accuracy, and to project the distinctive appearances of both children and animals.
Its title also indicates that the portrait was made on the grounds of the Dawson family home, which in the 19th century was situated on some 100 acres of property. Spring Hill was an enclave of wealthy estates settled west of Mobile at an elevation and distance from the coast where breezes would have moderated the summer’s heat and humidity. In Troye’s more typical paintings of racehorses the background is not usually elaborated as it is here, and the fact that it is suggests that it was not just Dawson’s heirs and domestic animals that the artist was depicting, but also his ownership of extensive and valuable real estate as well.
Upon William A. Dawson’s death in 1885, the family portraits passed to his five living children, “to be kept together or divided among them as they may wish.” (4) His oldest son, William, is recorded as having served in a Confederate cavalry regiment (Murphy’s Battalion Alabama Cavalry, Company B) enlisting in March of 1862, but, by November of that year, he had been furloughed due to illness. (5) William married in 1877 and had a son, Henry, prior to his death sometime between 1880 and 1884. The younger son, John, married in 1873 and had three children. John also pre-deceased his father, dying in 1882. The family home, Carolina Hall, was sold in 1883, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in January of 1973.
(3) In addition to this portrait of his two oldest sons, Troye painted a portrait of his daughter, Catherine (called Kitty), which is now in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5488. He also painted a third work depicting two younger sons, which is now unlocated but is described in Alexander MacKay-Smith, p.155.
(4) Alabama, U.S. Wills and Probate Records 1753-1999 (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8799/images/0007)
(5) See Alabama Department of Archives and History, Civil War Database, http://archives.alabama.gov/civilwar for the record of W O Dawson.
