Self Portrait with Orchids

Leonebel Jacobs (American, 1883–1967).

This work is offered in a giltwood frame.

Writer, sculptor, teacher and portrait painter Leonebel Jacobs first studied under Brush and Charles Hawthorne at the University of Oregon. A well-traveled artist, Jacobs lived and painted in China, Hawaii, New York City and Los Angeles. She was a member of the American Watercolor Society, the American Federation of Arts, the Municipal Art Commission of New York, the National Association of Women Artists, the New York Watercolor Club and the Pen & Brush Club.

Jacobs spent her early years in the Foreign Colony in Peking, China, as a portrait artist to nobles and visiting foreigners, including Rabindranath Tagore. Notably, Jacobs painted several portraits of the Emperor and Empress after they fled to Tianjin when Christian general Feng Yu-Hsiang came to power. Additionally, Jacobs's paintings include Hawaiian notables, former First Ladies Grace Coolidge and Lou Henry Hoover, Sir John Lavery, Mrs. William B. Meloney, Dr. Frances Carter Wood and Gutzon Borglum among others. Jacobs exhibited widely and with success, including in Paris, New York City and Boston, and in 1937, she authored "Portraits of Thirty Authors."

Signed lower right