A few years back I posted this photo and commented how I found it among my family artifacts and how my ancestor must have been an Abe fan. It appeared to me then to possibly be a newspaper clipping pasted to cardboard by my ancestor to preserve it. I put it back in storage and didn’t think about it till a couple days ago.
I read an article by Harold Holzer (WSJ 2/12/25) titled “Abe Lincoln Supermodel”. One of the photos of Abe included looked real familiar. I dug up the photo of my Abe on my desktop and my eyebrows went up. They are almost identical. As my artifact captioned, it was the last photos he sat for before being killed in April 1865. Per Holzer the photos were taken by Alexander Gardner on Feb. 5th 1865. They showed a rare smile he hadn’t previously expressed in any official photo/painting.
What stuck out in his article for me, was when he mentioned the new trend of quickly making cardboard-mounted paper prints of Lincoln to sell in places such as newsstands and shops. What?! Mine is cardboard mounted. I thought my ancestor did that. Does my copy date back to the late 1800s? It could. I have many handed down artifacts from that time period. I have to get to my storage unit and find it.
I learned Carte de visite is the name of the photographic reprint style. It was introduced in England in 1857. An on-line article by Colin Harding states the correct size for the carte portraits are postcard size with square corners. The later ones are on heavier cardboard and rounded edges. Hmm, my Abe and another cardboard mounted one are larger. The National Portrait Gallery website backs up the smaller size. I do have smaller ones of ancestors that would match their descriptions. Guess I will have to keep pondering my larger ones that match the technique.
With this new knowledge I can consider my images as souvenirs and collectibles of their time, not a craft made by an ancestor. I love discovering new information on my old stuff.
Happy Birthday President Lincoln. I’m glad in your last sitting you dared to crack a little smile despite the rough times you lived in.
N.A.M.
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