Jacob Maentel (1778-?)

Descended in family to Dorothy D. Faul, Robinson, Illinois
Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Cambridge, Maryland
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, "The Garbisch Collection, Volume II," April 27, 29-30, 1977, lot 408

“A Portfolio of Primitive Watercolors," Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1964
"Jacob Maentel: A Folk Art Whodunit," American Folk Art Museum, 1965
On loan to New-York Historical Society from the Garbisch Collection, 1971-1977
“American Folk Painters of Three Centuries," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1980
"Simplicity, a Grace: Jacob Maentel in Indiana," Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, IN, 1989/90
"Jubilation/Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined," New York, American Folk Art Museum, January 17-September 2, 2012

Black, Mary C. "Jacob Maentel: A Farmer Fond of Painting." Antiques and the Arts Weekly (Sept. 12, 1971): C-6
--. Simplicity, a Grace: Jacob Maentel in Indiana. Evansville, Indiana: Evansville Museum of Art and Science, 1989, p. 19
Lipman, Jean, and Tom Armstrong, eds. American Folk Painters of Three Centuries. New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Whitney Museum of American Art, 1980, p. 116
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 37, fig. 12

Appears to be in very good condition. Backed (glued) to archival heavy paper.
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Four unsigned, undated portraits of the Faul family were instrumental in
providing a crucial link between a group of watercolor portraits of New Harmony, Indiana, sitters and watercolors by Jacob Maentel executed in the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania.¹ Establishing that the artist had worked in both regions, Mary C. Black ultimately demonstrated without question that the portraits formerly attributed to one "Stettinius" were in fact by Maentel.²Maentel codified an approach to portraits set in landscapes early in his artistic career. Watercolors from a later date, such as this portrait of Mr. Faul, rely on these earlier conventions: a tall shady tree on one side, houses in the distance, rolling hills in the middle ground. In the later works, however, the figures appear in frontal view as opposed to profile. In his portrait, Mr. Faul stands almost as tall as the tree on the left side of the composition. His commanding presence overpowers the landscape, which shows a dense row of trees in the distance and a neat white house and log cabin. Behind him is a split-rail fence to which a toy-size horse is tethered. Hand on hip, Mr. Faul stands larger than life and dominates his world. -S.C.H.

¹ For the portraits of John Cooper Jr. and William Ferguson Cooper, see Black, Simplicity, a Grace, pp. 22, 23.
² The extensive research done on the artist by Black and other scholars is well documented; see note 25 for key essays and articles.