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CHESTER HARDING
(American, 1792-1866)

A chance encounter with an itinerant Ohio sign painter inspired Massachusetts native Chester Harding to try his hand at portraiture. In late 1818, he joined his brother Horace—a successful chair maker—in Paris, Kentucky. Within six months, Chester reportedly had “painted nearly one hundred portraits, at twenty-five dollars a head.” This large, full-length painting is a remarkably ambitious effort. Not only was this painting Harding’s first attempt at a full-length picture, but it was also his first group portrait.

The painting depicts prominent central-Kentucky citizens. Colonel John Speed Smith had served as William Henry Harrison’s aide-de-camp in the War of 1812 and was a state legislator with a promising political future. His wife, Eliza Louisa Clay Smith—painted here at age 21—was the daughter of General Green Clay, the sister of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, and Henry Clay’s cousin. The family’s Georgian-style brick home in Richmond, Kentucky, where this portrait was painted, was General Clay’s gift to the young couple and the birthplace of their daughter, Sallie Ann Lewis Clay. The house was demolished in 1957.

After visiting Kentucky in 1818, where he experienced great success painting the likenesses of politicians and prominent citizens, Chester Harding traveled to St. Louis in 1820. In June of that year, he set out to locate and paint the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone. The artist encountered the 86-year-old Boone in a modest cabin in the Femme Osage Valley in St. Charles County, Missouri. While Boone allegedly recounted his exploratory adventures, Harding completed a pencil sketch and a small oil study of his subject. Harding depicted Boone in period costume, his serious gaze and firm jaw reflecting many years of arduous work and perseverance. Although a number of esteemed American artists portrayed Daniel Boone, Harding’s version is thought to be the only likeness of Boone painted from life.

Harding gave the portrait in the Speed’s collection, one of three copies he made after the original study, to the Lexington portrait artist Matthew Harris Jouett in 1821. Harding had become acquainted with Jouett when he first came to Kentucky, and may have studied under him at that time.

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