Artist

Jacob Eichholtz

born Lancaster, PA 1776-died Lancaster, PA 1842
Media - portrait_image_113195.jpg - 90130
Self-Portrait. Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Also known as
  • Jacob Eicholz
  • Jacob Eicholtz
Born
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States
Died
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States
Active in
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Jacob Eichholtz began his career as a sign painter and a coppersmith. After several years making such things as copper teakettles and entryway signs, he ventured into portraiture in 1801. When noted portraitist Thomas Sully came to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to paint its leading citizens, Eichholtz gave the artist his “painting room” to use as a studio. Sully took Eichholtz under his wing, giving him painting supplies and offering advice. Eichholtz later wrote that “Chance about this time threw a painter into the town of my residence. This in a moment decided my fate as to the arts.” He painted mainly in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Rindge, “Jacob Eichholtz: 1776-1842,” in Kelly et al., American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, vol. I, 1996)