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Memorial picture of Sara Regina Klop


(Little Girl Standing in Yellow Dress, Folding Flower in Right Hand in front of Landscape)
Jacob Maentel (American (born in Germany), 1763–1863, active in U.S. 1804–1850)
American
about 1836

Medium/Technique Watercolor on paper
Dimensions Sheet: 24.0 x 19.7 cm (9 7/16 x 7 3/4 in.)
Credit Line Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
Accession Number1980.485
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsWatercolors

This graceful little picture is a memorial. The inscription tells the story. Sara Regina Klop was born on October 19, 1832, to Samuel and Eleisa Klop, of Heidelberg, Pennsylvania. She had a short life, dying of gehirnwassersucht (“brain dropsy”) on August 20, 1836—aged just 3 years, 10 months, and 1 day. Sweet though it seems, the work seems more individualized than it is. This sort of composition, showing a young girl facing us against a holding was standard at the time, and Maentel made a number of pictures that are almost identical.

DescriptionFolk art- portraits. Birth (1832): baptism and memorial (1836)
InscriptionsLong inscription in pen and ink below image
ProvenanceBy 1980, Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; 1980, their bequest to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 10, 1980)