Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Engraving |
Title |
Ashland, The Homestead of Henry Clay |
Catalog Number |
1985.6 |
Creator |
Sartain, John |
Date |
1853 |
Material(s) |
Paper/Ink |
Dimensions |
H-20.625 W-29.875 inches |
Description |
This is a hand-colored engraving of Henry Clay's home, Ashland. It depicts the home in the summer with trees in the foreground. Two female figures are on the front steps. One male figure is to the left of the house with two cows. In the foreground, there is an empty Windsor chair with a dog and blanket lying in front of it. Printed below the image, there is text that reads "Drawn by James Hamilton, after Daguerreotypes taken on the spot by J.M. Hewitt. Published by F. Hegan, Louisville, Ky, 1853. Engraved by J. Sartain." Below, there are three printed images. The image on the left shows a figure of the God Hermes holding a shield patterned with stars and stripes with tall ships and a factory in the background. The center image is a bust portrait of Henry Clay. The right image is a female figure sitting on a shock of wheat cradling a scythe in her right arm and to her right are a rake, a shovel and a plow. The title of the print is at the bottom center below the bust portrait of clay, and it says "Ashland, The Homestead of Henry Clay." Ashland is colored blue. Across the bottom edge of the paper in the center is the following text: Entered according to Act of Congress by B. Lloyd in the year 1852 in the Clerk's Office of the Dist. Court of the U.S. for the Dist. of KY. |
Notes |
Henry Clay, a major figure in national politics during the first half of the nineteenth century, lived at his estate, Ashland, in Lexington, Kentucky, from 1811 until his death in 1852. Clay, his wife Lucretia, and their eleven children lived in an elegant brick Federal-style country residence built ca. 1806-11. The one-story wings, designed by Benjamin H. Latrobe, were added by 1814. Clay took great pride in the six-hundred-acre farm at Ashland, where he raised imported livestock in addition to crops, and where thoroughbreds trained on one of the first private racetracks west of the Appalachians. In 1855-57 Clay's son James rebuilt the house to rectify structural defects in the original. Noted architect Thomas Lewinski redesigned the house, retaining but modernizing the original Federal floor plan and adding decorative motifs of the Italianate style popular at the time. Famed engraver John Sartain was born in 1808 and died in 1897. |
Collection |
Mrs. James DeRake Collection |
People |
Hamilton, James Sartain, John Clay, Henry, 1777-1852 Hegan, F. |
Subjects |
Prints Senators Historic buildings Trees Dogs Engraving Engravings |
Search Terms |
Lexington (Ky.) Fayette County (Ky.) Kentucky Historic buildings Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate |
Physical Holder |
Kentucky Historical Society - KHS |