Edward Troye

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Edward Troye, French painter of American blood horses (b. 1808 near Geneva, Switzerland - died July 25, 1874 in Georgetown, Kentucky), was born to Jean Baptiste de Troy, noted artist of the painting The Plague of Marseilles hung in the Louvre, Paris, France. At age 20 he emigrated to the West Indies of the New World and later on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he was an employed artist of Sartain's Magazine. He married in 1839.

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, particularly for an Alexander family of Georgetown, Kentucky (with whom he spent half of his life) and Alexander Keene Richards (1827-1881).

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.

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-fourth's have been photographed since 1912. In addition, he is the author of The Race Horses of America (1867). At his death, he was survived by a daughter.

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