Joseph Decker

By the mid 1870s, he had aspirations to become a serious artist and began taking drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.

He was able to save enough money to travel to Munich in 1879, where he spent a year studying with the history painter, Wilhelm Lindenschmit.

In addition to still-lifes, he created genre scenes, portraits and novelties which incorporated the shape of the artist's palette, including the finger-hole.

Later he worked for the well-known art collector (and his primary patron), Thomas B. Clarke; restoring porcelains.

[2] William H. Gerdts, also an art historian, has pointed out similarities between some of Decker's paintings and the illustrations on seed packets made in Rochester, New York, at about the same time.