Clay’s portrait sums up his political career

Anyone walking through the Capitol will pass countless marble busts, statues and oil portraits of statesmen of centuries past. But onlookers are likely to take a second glance at one painting in particular: that of Henry Clay.

At various points a House Speaker, senator and secretary of State, Clay appears well-groomed in suit and tie and is positioned for one of his classic speeches. But in this poster-like portrait, a cluster of seemingly unrelated objects surrounds the Kentucky native: a plow, a globe, a shuttle and — an anvil?

{mosads}Artist John Neagle started painting this nine-foot portrait and another, identical one in 1842. He finished the following year. Clay, in his mid-60s at the time, praised Neagle for the painting, which became one of the artist’s most celebrated works, according to Farar Elliott, the curator in the House’s Office of History and Preservation. The Capitol purchased the portrait nearly 30 years later for $1,500. (The Union League Club of Philadelphia has the other portrait.)

The portrait reflects Clay’s dream to create an “American system” based on industry and agriculture, Elliott said. The anvil, shuttle and plow, as well as the oxen and ship in the painting’s lower left side, are symbols of items that were readily accessible to Clay’s constituents. 

“It’s a humbling reminder to all of us that the pictures that we look at now — a lot of what enables us to understand it is based on the time we live in,” Elliott said in explaining why the objects initially might not make sense to the modern-day observer. 

The anvil and shuttle represent the iron, metal and the textile industry, according to Elliott. The plow represents agriculture, and the ship and oxen represent transportation. 

Clay borrowed these symbols, particularly as secretary of State in the John Quincy Adams administration, as tools to unify the United States and to wean the Western Hemisphere from its dependence on Europe, said Matthew Wasniewski, a historian in the history and preservation office.

In the painting’s lower left, a large American flag is draped over a globe that displays South America. The image alludes to Clay’s commitment to freeing South America from Spanish rule and ensuring American industrial influence around the world.

Neagle’s painting is as much a portrait as it is an illustration of the political platform of a man who also ran for president three times, Elliott said.