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ROBERT BRAMMER
(American, born Ireland, about 1811-1853)

AUGUSTUS A. VON SMITH
(American, born Germany, active 1835-1842)

Oakland House and Race Course, Louisville, 1840
Oil on canvas
Purchase, Museum Art Fund 1956.19

Oakland Race Course and an adjacent hotel opened in Louisville in October 1832. In September 1839, the course was the site of a famous four-mile race between Grey Eagle, a Kentucky horse, and Wagner, from Tennessee. Led by Henry Clay and other prominent politicians, some 10,000 people from all over the country attended the race, which carried an impressive $14,000 purse.

This painting by Robert Brammer and Augustus Von Smith, two itinerant painters who worked together in Louisville, Indiana, and New Orleans, depicts the hotel and race course as it appeared a year after this race. The street and hotel are filled with elegantly dressed people on their way to the track, reminding the viewer that horse racing was considered “the sport of gentlemen,” as well as a major event on the social calendar. As artists with different specialties, Brammer and Von Smith shared in the execution of this painting. A landscape painter, Brammer presumably painted the famous setting, while Von Smith, a portraitist, must have contributed the figures