Portrait of Serena Angelica Mayer Franklin

Serena Angelica Mayer Franklin (1816-1877) was the only daughter of Col. George Mayer and Mary Carpenter Smith. She married Thomas Emlen Franklin (1810-1884), a prominent lawyer, in 1838. Their marriage was a union that merged two prosperous Lancaster, Pennsylvania families. Jacob Eichholtz (1776-1842) was an early American painter, known primarily for his portraits in the Romantic Victorian tradition. Eichholtz was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to a family of prosperous Pennsylvania Germans and spent most of his professional life in Philadelphia. He is known to have painted over 800 portraits over the course of 35 years.