Edward Troye

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title: "Edward Troye" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1808-births", "1874-deaths", "artists-from-geneva", "painters-from-philadelphia", "people-from-scott-county,-kentucky", "19th-century-american-painters", "american-male-painters", "19th-century-swiss-painters", "swiss-male-painters", "painters-from-kentucky", "spring-hill-college-alumni", "swiss-emigrants-to-the-united-states", "19th-century-american-male-artists", "19th-century-swiss-male-artists", "burials-at-georgetown-cemetery-(georgetown,-kentucky)", "spring-hill-college-faculty"] description: "Swiss-American painter (1808–1874)" topic_path: "people/1800s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Troye" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Swiss-American painter (1808–1874) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox artist"]

Field	Value
name	Edward Troye
image	Edward Troye retouch.jpg
caption	Edward Troye
birth_date	12 July 1808
birth_place	Lausanne, Switzerland
death_date	25 July 1874
death_place	Georgetown, Kentucky, US
resting_place	Georgetown Cemetery (Georgetown, KY)
nationality	Swiss-American
known_for	Painter, teacher
movement	Realism
spouse	Corneila Van de Graff
::

| name = Edward Troye | image = Edward Troye retouch.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Edward Troye | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | birth_date = 12 July 1808 | birth_place = Lausanne, Switzerland | death_date = 25 July 1874 | death_place = Georgetown, Kentucky, US | resting_place = Georgetown Cemetery (Georgetown, KY) | nationality = Swiss-American | education = | alma_mater = | known_for = Painter, teacher | notable_works = | style = | movement = Realism | spouse = Corneila Van de Graff | partner = | awards = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = | module =

Edward Troye (12 July 1808 – 25 July 1874) was a Swiss-born American painter best known for his portraits of Thoroughbred horses.

Early life and background

Troye was born on July 12, 1808, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Travels

At age 20 he emigrated to the West Indies, and later on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was an employed artist of Sartain's Magazine.

Career as painter

Life in Kentucky

On July 16, 1839, Troye married Corneila Van de Graff of Scott County, Kentucky, and settled in Central Kentucky where he lived for the next 35 years.

While living in Kentucky, Troye painted portraits and race horses for the local families in Georgetown, Kentucky. He worked primarily for the Steele and Alexander families, and Alexander "Keene" Richards.

Troye taught French and drawing at Spring Hill College, 1849–1855.

Later travels and move to Alabama

Later he and Richards traveled to the Holy Land where he painted horses, Damascus, Syria cattle, the Dead Sea and the bazaar of Damascus while Richards bought Arabian horses. Bethany College, West Virginia, retains copies of some of these paintings.

In 1869, Troye moved his family to a 700 acre cotton plantation in Madison County, Alabama. Troye returned to Kentucky and resided at the home of longtime friend Keen Richards until his death from pneumonia on July 25, 1874.

Death and legacy

Troye's best works, between the years 1835 and 1874 (prior to the birth of photography), are true-to-life delineations of historical American Great Plains horses. He painted Southern United States pre-American Civil War thoroughbreds. Little was known of Troye's work in the eastern United States until 1912. Since then, more than 300 of his paintings have been found, of which three-fourths have been photographed since 1912. In addition, he is the author of The Race Horses of America (1867).

Troye is buried in Georgetown Cemetery with his wife and grandson, Clarence D. Johnson.

Notable horse paintings

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Self_Portrait_in_a_Carriage_Edward_Troye.jpeg" caption="''Self Portrait in a Carriage'', oil on canvas, 1852, [[Yale University Art Gallery"] ::

• American Eclipse and Sir Henry
• Bertrand
• Black Maria
• Boston and his son, Lexington
• Glencoe I
• Kentucky
• Lecomte
• Leviathan
• Longfellow
• Ophelia - dam of Gray Eagle
• Reality
• Reel
• Revenue
• Richard Singleton
• Ruthless
• Wagner
• West Australian

References

References

1. Coleman, J. Winston. (1968). "Historic Kentucky". Henry Clay Press.
2. (1964). "Dictionary of American Biography". Charles Scribner's Sons.
3. (2004-10-29). "The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter M. Jeffords". [[Sotheby's]].

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