Woman in Profile with a Flower

Holding a single pink rose in her right hand, the unidentified woman in Jacob Maentel’s portrait stands in rigid profile, her gaze fixed directly ahead, as if stiffly posing for the artist. Her carefully coifed hair and long Empire dress with its frilled collar record the fashion of the mid-1810s. Maentel suggests the three-dimensional reality of the figure in space through such details as the varied position of the feet, with the right foot slightly turned out, and the folds of fabric in the sleeve and skirt relieving the dense blue of the taut triangle that constitutes most of the woman’s form. She stands on natural ground distinguished by a few small, nondescript plants; the horizon incongruously corresponds with the bottom edge of her garment, while the background is simply the unpainted white of the paper support. This tension between pictorial illusion and flat, abstract decoration characterizes the work of many of the self-taught artists who flourished in the United States in the early nineteenth century.

Maentel is best known for portraits of figures in carefully detailed interiors, works that are still valued as records of the decoration and furnishings of rural, middle-class homes in the German immigrant communities in which he worked. He also made numerous likenesses with exterior settings, of which both Woman in Profile with a Flower and Child with Rose (TF 1999.92), another Maentel work in the Terra Foundation collection, are examples. Both works also present the female subject holding a pink rose, a traditional Christian symbol of grace as well as a time-honored reference to feminine moral and physical beauty.

Intimate and compact yet highly formal, profile and silhouette portraits were highly popular in early nineteenth-century America, particularly among middle-class and rural consumers. Three other examples in the Terra Foundation collection are the work of itinerant New England artist Joseph H. Davis (TF 1992.30, TF 1992.31, TF 1999.36). The profile portrait traces its pedigree to the early European Renaissance, when the format, traditionally used to depict female saints, was adapted to portraits of young brides. The fashionable dress and proffered rose of Maentel's subject may signify her emergence into full womanhood as a wife-to-be. Indeed, it is tempting to imagine that Woman in Profile with a Flower is one of two companion portraits of a betrothed pair that, hung side-by-side, functioned much as the Terra Foundation's profile double wedding portrait of Hannah Roberts and Lewis Tebbets (TF 1992.31).

Two Centuries of American Folk Painting, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, February 10–April 21, 1985.

(Re)Presenting Women, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.

A Rich Simplicity: Folk Art from the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 7–September 21, 2003.