Davy Crockett, the famous frontiersman from Tennessee, was serving in the United States House of Representatives in 1834 when he went on a speaking tour of eastern cities that was designed to promote the interests of the anti-Jacksonian Whig Party. During his stay in Boston, he sat for his portrait to Chester Harding, then the city's most popular portrait painter. The image agrees with a contemporary description: "Colonel Crockett is an uncommonly fine looking man. His face has an exceedingly amiable expression and his features are prominent and striking. He wears his hair which is black, (with a light shade of brown) parted down the centre of his forehead, combed back from his temples, and ending in a slight curl at the neck not unlike the simple manner of many of the clergy." Less than two years later, in 1836, Crockett met his untimely death during the war for Texas's independence from Mexico, at the Battle of the Alamo.

Chester Harding (1792-1866)
Oil on canvas, 1834
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Future bequest of Ms. Katharine Bradford
NPG.L/NPG.1.88

Enlarged image

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