Take one stupendous Library, add a Fine Arts Museum of the highest caliber and, Voila! you have the makings of a series of exhibits rivaled by none. Understand that the focus of both the Library and Museum is Sporting Art, an area of artistic endeavor and research that has yet to be included in its absolutely appropriate place by the art world, and Middleburg has, in its midst, a cultural treat to rival the ages.

The current NSLM exhibit: Edward Troye and His Biographers: The Archives of Harry Worcester Smith and Alexander Mackay-Smith is the first exhibit in the NSLM's "Coming Home" series. This new initiative originated with Board Member and Fellowship Committee Chairman Timothy J. Greenan, M.D.

According to Museum Director Melanie Leigh Mathewes, "Dr. Greenan proposed the development of a series for which scholars would be invited to apply for a John H. Daniels Fellowship to study topics designated by the NSLM to develop publications and exhibitions."

"Named the Coming Home Series, it is a great opportunity to highlight material that is held in the NSLM's permanent collections," she continued.

"This combination of printed material and original art embodies NSLM's mission: to preserve, promote and share the literature, art and culture of turf and field sports," added Chairman of the Board Manuel H. Johnson.

As Claudia Pfeiffer, NSLM's George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Curator, explained, "By creating synergy between our deep Sporting Library archives and associated works of art, we have a chance to create significant exhibits that we hope will place Sporting Art where it belongs: on the continuum of the art of America rather than as a separate, sometimes forgotten category."

So, who was Edward Troye?

He was born in 1808 in Geneva, the grandson of a French nobleman, a political exile who had taken up residence in Switzerland. His father, a sculptor of some eminence, moved with his children to London after his wife, Edward's mother, died. There, Edward was well educated in the Fine Arts to become an artist.

Edward proved his talent at a very young age when he painted "Donkey and Goat," a delightful charcoal study you will enjoy as you visit the NSLM show. He was only fifteen, but his ability to capture both attitude and natural setting illustrates an ability way beyond his years.

When his father suffered a major financial loss, Edward was twenty years of age. He left his father, brother and sisters and sailed for the West Indies where he managed a sugar estate for a few years, but poor health forced him to leave the islands and he decided to come to America where his artistic talent and ability to capture animals on canvas began a career painting equine bloodstock.

Few would have known of Troye's work had not Henry Worcester Smith (1865-1945) understood the importance of his work to the art history of America. But Worcester Smith died before he could finish a seminal work on Troye.

Alexander MacKay-Smith (1903-1998), a founding member of the National Sporting Library, continued Worcester Smith's work on the artist to create The Race Horses of America 1832-1872: Portraits and Other Paintings by Edward Troye. This, the definitive biography and catalogue was researched and written when MacKay-Smith was a John H. Daniels Fellow at the NSLM.

Mackay-Smith's research and book gave voice to the time period which Toye painted, a time period that had been almost forgotten by history, but a time that was captured elegantly in Troye's paintings of animals and their contexts.

In Troye's obituary, Alexander Keene Richards wrote "Troye's paintings were studies from nature, faithful to a fault, but never mechanical. He was no imitator. He had a style of his own, and often said it was his head that painted his pictures not his hand."

He painted in the style of Stubbs and Sartorius and when you enter the Museum the first painting you meet is "Self Portrait, 1852." Painted in 1852 in Alabama, the painting was a gift for Troye's niece and her husband. The artist is dapperly dressed sitting atop a carriage pulled by a gray. The curator's description reads: "Against a lush, green tree line, the horse is presented in a foreshortened perspective showing the artist's mastery in portraying depth. The composition is anchored at right with the vertical line of the building impeding the eye from leaving the canvas with a glance. The boy at left holds the reins of a bay with a saddle and blanket on the ground. Buildings are seen in the distance."

It is no wonder Troye's paintings were in great demand by magazines. His ability to capture a moment in time is delightful and his love of his subject inescapable. There is little question that his paintings are fine examples of a fascinating American period when the horse was often the central element of everyday and elegant life.

Whether you enjoy famous stallions, Lordly cattle in their prime, Arabian champions or Civil War scenes, you and children of all ages will thoroughly enjoy Edward Troye's animals at the National Sporting Library and Museum.

For information about the exhibit, opening hours and related details, please visit www.nsl.org.