Jacob Riegel, Jr.

Brief History

JACOB RIEGEL, JR. (1889-1959)

Jacob Riegel, Jr. was born in Philadelphia of old German stock going back to Colonial days.  A graduate of Princeton (1912) he was a life-long Tiger, but also a devoted historian and chronicler of old Philadelphia, and particularly of Germantown, where he and his family resided at 55 West Schoolhouse Lane (“The Hourglass House”) for four decades.  He married Georgiana Pitfield Riegel, with whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne.

Self taught as an artist, he took his sketchbooks with him in 1916 when, as a conscientious objector, he volunteered as an ambulance driver as a member of the AEF.  His pen and ink notebooks were filled with sketches of towns and soldiers throughout France.

After the Armistice, he returned to Philadelphia and sought employment as a design draftsman with Philco where he remained until he retired, but always with an incredibly active “hobby” of line drawings and colored illustrations of Universities, historic houses, and colonial battlefields, along with some important commissioned work. His work is known not only for its artistic detail but also for its historical accuracy.

Many of his larger works were reproduced in limited editions via brass plates, which plates Jacob voluntarily contributed to be melted down for the WWII effort. Fortunately, many of the original prints survived on the walls of his many friends and fellow artists in the greater Philadelphia area.

Among his more well-known works  are:

University of Pennsylvania 

Princeton University

Battle of Germantown

History of Philadelphia’s Volunteer Fire Companies

Insurance Company of North America

Map of Delaware and It’s History

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Riegel was an artist and cartographer, especially known for his sketches of historic buildings. He worked for architect Mantle Fielding, then worked in the art department of the lithographic and printing firm of Ketterlinus & Co