Lt. Col. Alexander Wake Holeman USA (1827-1887) as He Appeared in 1862, (painting).

Lt. Col. Alexander Wake Holeman USA (1827-1887) as He Appeared in 1862, (painting).

Marschall, Nicola, 1829-1917, painter. (attributed to)

Lt. Col. Alexander Wake Holeman USA (1827-1887) as He Appeared in 1862, (painting).

Digital Reference:

Oil on paperboard.

Oval: image 8 x 6 in.

Portrait of Alexander Wake Holeman believed to have been painted in 1880 in Louisville from an earlier photograph showing Holeman in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel, a rank he held for approximately one year in 1862, before being promoted to full colonel in 1863, and retiring from military service on Sept. 20, 1864.

Portrait male -- Holeman, Alexander Wake -- Bust

Dress -- Uniform -- Military Uniform

Restricted Owner, Jackson Heights, New York

Formerly in the collection of Holeman, Alexander Wake, Colonel, Louisville, Kentucky until 1887.

Holeman, John English, Louisville, Kentucky 1887.

Lenhart, Ann Elizabeth Holeman,

Smith, Betty Ann Holeman Lenhart,

The portrait has descended through the Holeman family from Colonel Alexander Wake Holeman USA (1827-1887) of Louisville, Kentucky, and at his death to his son lawyer John English Holeman (1860-1929) of Louisville, Kentucky, to his daughter Ann Elizabeth Holeman Lenhart (1894-1968), to her daughter Betty Ann Holeman Lenhart Smith (1914-2005), and to the current owner.

The sitter is Alexander Wake Holeman (1827-1887), only child of Jacob Harrod Holeman (1793-1857) and his wife Mary Ann Wake Holeman (1804-ca. 1855) of Frankfort and New Liberty, Kentucky. Holeman was born in 1827 on a cattle ranch in Owen County, Kentucky. At age 19, he enlisted as a private in Col. Humphrey Marshall's Regiment of Kentucky Riflemen, sent to Mexican War front along the Rio Grande in the midsummer of 1846. Listed in muster roles of “Company C, 1st Regiment, Kentucky Mounted Volunteers.” He was captured near Encarnacion by Mexican forces and forced to take part in the infamous "Black Bean Decimation." On July 1847, he escaped Mexican Army captivity in Huejutla, Mexico, and made his way to Tampico, where he took a commercial vessel to Mobile, Alabama to return home. In 1851, he went to Cuba during the Lopez Rebellion, fought under then Colonel John T. Pickett of Kentucky at Battle of Cardenas, a failed effort at Cuban independence. In 1852, he married Miss Jane B. English (1836-1869) in Owen County. In 1855, he took part in overthrow of Nicaraguan government as part of William Walker’s expedition. In 1859, he was back in Kentucky as a captain in the militia. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he was called to regular Army duty, and advanced ultimately to rank of colonel by Sept. 1863. He served, in sequence, as commander of 8th, 12th, and 11th Kentucky cavalry regiments. Upon retirement in 1864, he returned to Owen county, but in 1866 was brought by his eldest son to Louisville for medical attention and died there in 1887. His wife died there in 1869. He remained in Louisville the rest of his life, working as tobacco inspector and for the IRS.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

Control Number:

Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9382

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