William Browning Cooper (Tennessee, 1811-1900), three-quarter length oil on canvas portrait depicting Tennessee senator Henry Cooper (1827-1884). The painting, probably made about the time of his marriage in 1850, portrays Cooper seated and wearing a black suit and cravat and gold heart pin, with his left arm resting on a book atop a draped table. A sunset landscape is partially visible in the background. Housed in a heavily carved giltwood and gesso Rococo-style frame. Unsigned. Sight: 35 3/8 in. H x 28 1/4 in. W. Framed: 47 1/4 in. H x 40 1/4 in. W.  Historical information:  Henry Cooper was born on August 22, 1827, in Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee to Lt. Matthew Delamere Cooper and Mary Agnes Cooper. He married Ann Eliza Strickland, whose portrait, also by William Cooper, is also included in this auction (Lot #187). Henry Cooper attended Dixon Academy in Shelbyville and graduated from Jackson College in 1847. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1850 and began practicing in Shelbyville. Cooper served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855 and again from 1857 to 1859. As early as 1857, he was a fierce political enemy of Andrew Johnson, even though Johnson had employed Cooper's brother Edmund as his secretary, and he opposed secession. In April 1862, Henry Cooper was appointed judge of Tennessee’s seventh judicial circuit, a position he held until resigning in January 1866. He then became a professor at the Lebanon Law School from 1866 to 1867 before moving to Nashville, where he returned to private practice. His political career continued in the Tennessee State Senate from 1869 to 1870. In 1871, Cooper was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate, where he served one full term from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1877. He chose not to seek renomination in 1876. After leaving the Senate, Cooper pursued mining ventures in Mexico. Tragically, on February 4, 1884, he was killed by bandits in Tierra Blanca, Guadelupe y Calvo, Mexico, where he was living and working at the time (https://bioguide.congress.gov/).  Artist biography: William Browning Cooper was born in Smith County, Tennessee. He graduated with honors in 1832 from the National Academy of Design in New York, thanks largely to the financial support of his older brother, fellow Middle Tennessee portraitist Washington Bogart Cooper. He also went to Europe in 1838, studying painting in Italy and France. Cooper returned to Tennessee about 1840 and worked in Memphis, Nashville, Columbia, Pulaski, and Northern Alabama. During and after the Civil War, he also worked in Kentucky. At various times, he also worked in Washington, DC, St. Louis, Chicago , Natchez, New Orleans and Little Rock. Cooper spent his final years in Chattanooga, but is not listed in that city's business directories. He was struck and killed by a trolley in Chattanooga in 1900 and is buried in Macon, GA. (Source: The Tennessee Historical Quarterly: Vol. XLVI, Winter 1987, "Portrait Painting in Tennessee"). 

Painting has been professionally conserved, canvas relined and restretched. Overall light craquelure. Scattered retouching throughout, primarily to the upper half. Largest area scattered in the darker background at upper left, throughout 19 19-inch x 9-inch area. See U/V photography. 

By descent in the family of the subject.