Art Institute of Chicago
Mr. Benjamin Schaum
Jacob Eichholtz (American, 1776–1842)LinkedCulture matchlcp-f81820564daa
- Date
- 1808–10
- Medium
- Oil on yellow poplar panel
- Culture
- Lancaster
- Department
- Arts of the Americas
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 61148
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
Working as a coppersmith in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Jacob Eichholtz aspired to be a portraitist, eventually giving up his metalwork business to focus on painting by 1811. Despite having essentially no formal training in the medium, Eichholtz progressed quickly, becoming one of the leading portrait painters in Philadelphia and nearby areas. These portraits of the family of Benjamin Schaum ( 1980.743 , 1980.744 , and 1980.745 ), a fellow resident and coppersmith in Lancaster, are examples of the artist’s early style. Eichholtz first mastered small, profile portraits like these, typically executed on wooden panels. Later he developed a more sophisticated handling of the figure, rendering larger-scale compositions on canvas of his sitters in three-quarter views.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Gift of the Estate of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
- Provenance
- Commissioned from the artist by Mr. Benjamin Schaum (about 1765–1814), Lancaster, PA, 1808/10; by descent to his daughter Mrs. Frederick Augustus Hall Muhlenberg (born Elizabeth Schaum?), 1814; by descent to her son Henry Ernestus Muhlenberg; by descent to his daugher Mary E. Muhlenberg; by descent to her niece Mrs. John R. Starkey (born Anne Muhlenberg Kress); by descent to her child McDowell Kress Starkey, by 1954; sold to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, New York, NY and Pokety Farms, MD, 1954; to the Estate of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1979; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1980.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033618
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