Portrait of a Man
ca. 1809
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mary L. Schaff
Accession Number
1964.6.2
Tags
About this artwork
Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman were painted to hang as a pair, the two sitters facing one another as husband and wife. The profile was a common portrait style in Americaâs first decades, and these paintings show the softer line and naturalistic modeling that Jacob Eichholtz favored in his later profile portraits. Eichholtz was a savvy businessman. He ran a smithing business and charged the same amount for framed portraits as he did for copper teakettles or lanterns, making the portr...
Art Historical Context
In the early 19th century, portrait pairs like Jacob Eichholtz's *Portrait a Man* (ca. 1809) were cherished family heirlooms, designed to hang together with its companion, *Portrait of a Woman The sitters gaze toward one another, evoking a sense of marital harmony in the young American Republic. Housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this painting captures the profile view—a popular format in America's first decades, reminiscent of classical antiquity and affordable silhouette traditions. Eichholtz, a self-taught artist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, elevated the profile portrait with ...
About the Artist
Jacob Eichholtz · 1776–1842
Comment on works: portraits