Portrait of Mrs. George May Keim (Juliana C. Mayer)

Wealthy Lancaster merchant Christopher Bartholomew Mayer (1756 – 1815) and his wife Susannah Burkhart Mayer (1761 – 1848) were enthusiastic patrons of the artist Jacob Eichholtz, commissioning a total of eight portraits of themselves, one set for each of their eight children. One such set is in the collection of the Reading Public Museum, along with this portrait of their daughter, Juliana, who married George May Keim (1805 –1861), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Eichholtz attended Franklin College (now Franklin and Marshall College), originally established to enable Pennsylvania Germans to achieve successful careers.  Although he began as a metalworker and prospered at this trade, Eichholtz made a deliberate decision in 1808 to become a painter, a transition from artisan to artist, and transformed himself into one of the nation’s most productive portrait painters.  Largely self-taught, he was influenced by artists such as Thomas Sully and Joshua Reynolds.  He worked primarily in Lancaster and exhibited periodically in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.