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Lot 150
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Abraham and Tad Lincoln from February 1864 and of Lincoln's Assassin from 1863
Abraham and Tad Lincoln from February 1864 and of Lincoln's Assassin from 1863
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Description:

Lincoln Abraham

Abraham and Tad Lincoln from February 1864 and of Lincoln’s Assassin from 1863

 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN and JOHN WILKES BOOTH. Carte de visite Photograph of Abraham and Tad Lincoln, February 9, 1864, Washington, D.C., 2.5" x 4"; and Carte de visite Photograph of John Wilkes Booth, ca. 1863, Washington, D.C., 2.5" x 4.125". Lincoln image has penciled inscription “At Home” at bottom. Booth card is gilded on edges. Both very good.

 

This intimate and poignant image of father and son is one of the most popular of President Abraham Lincoln. The previous year, the popular young actor John Wilkes Booth sat for a photographic portrait in Washington, D.C. Striking a dramatic pose with cane in hand, Booth hardly looked like the assassin he became in April 1865.

 

Historical Background

In the second half of 1863, the twenty-five-year-old actor John Wilkes Booth visited Alexander Gardner’s photographic studio in Washington, D.C. The young Scottish photographer had worked for Matthew Brady from 1856 to 1862, learning the photographer’s art. After opening his own studio in Washington, D.C., in May 1863, Gardner photographed both President Abraham Lincoln and his future assassin, along with thousands of Civil War officers and enlisted men.

 

On February 9, 1864, portrait painter Francis B. Carpenter arranged for President Lincoln to sit for a series of photographs at Matthew Brady’s Washington D.C. gallery. Carpenter, the President, and Lincoln’s youngest son Tad walked to Brady’s studio at 3 p.m.

 

Since Brady’s eyesight was beginning to fail, he asked his superintendent, Anthony Berger, to photograph Lincoln. Berger took at least seven poses of the President, both alone and with ten-year-old Tad. The images taken that day have formed the basis for Lincoln’s image on the penny and both the old and new $5 bills.

 

In this image, Lincoln holds “a big photograph album which the photographer, posing the father and son, had hit upon as a good device to use in this way to bring the two sitters together.” Lincoln later feared that the public would view this pose as “a species of false pretense” because most viewers would assume the book was a large clasped Bible. When they learned that it was a photograph album, they might think Lincoln was “making believe read the Bible to Tad.” Just as Lincoln feared, after his death some versions were carefully retouched in order to make the album appear to be a large Bible.

 

This image became the most popular of the President and his youngest son, and it was frequently reproduced in various sizes by Brady and copied by unauthorized photographers. In 1865, Berger copyrighted a version he produced in India ink that made at least two changes. He added background and changed the chair to make it appear that the setting was the White House, and he changed the volume to make it look like a Bible printed in double columns. Harper’s Weekly used Anthony’s revised image as the basis for its May 6, 1865, cover to memorialize the assassinated President, with the caption “President Lincoln at Home.” The image was also copied by many artists and lithographers, both authorized and unauthorized.  In 1984, the United States Postal Service issued this image on a stamp with the ironic caption, “A Nation of Readers,” to promote literacy.

 

Berger went on to photograph Lincoln again, this time at the White House, on April 26. Artist Francis B. Carpenter wanted photographs of Lincoln posed exactly where Lincoln had read the preliminary emancipation proclamation to his Cabinet—by the table in his office, so Berger took at least two photographs, one of Lincoln seated at the end of the table, and another of him standing. They are the only photographs of Lincoln in the White House. Berger also made photographs of Cabinet members in specific poses. Carpenter used these images for his monumental oil painting The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which now hangs in the U.S. Capitol.

 

 

Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) was born in Scotland and emigrated to the United States in 1856, with an interest in photography. He began working for Matthew Brady and continued until 1862. Gardner initially specialized in large Imperial photographs. In 1858, Brady put Gardner in charge of his Washington, D.C. studio, where the beginning of the Civil War spurred a demand for portraits of soldiers leaving for war. Gardner served as a staff photographer under General George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, in 1862, and ended his work for Brady. He photographed the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam and developed photographs in his traveling darkroom. He also photographed several later battles of the Civil War, including Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the siege of Petersburg. Gardner and his brother opened their own photographic studio in Washington, D.C. in May 1863. Gardner photographed Lincoln a total of seven times between 1862 and 1865. After publishing a two-volume photographic work on the Civil War in 1866 that did not sell well, Gardner turned from photography to help found an insurance company.

 

Thomas “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871) was the fourth son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. At the time of his birth, the Lincolns had already lost their second-born son, Edward, in 1850. The family mourned third-born son, Willie, in 1862. “Tad,” nicknamed by his father because he had a large head on a small body and wriggled like a tadpole, largely had free rein of the White House. He did not attend school and was the bane of many tutors. After Lincoln’s assassination, he, eldest son Robert T. Lincoln (1843-1926), and Mary Lincoln (1818-1882) lived in Chicago, until 1868.  Mary and Tad lived in Europe for the next three years. Tad, known for his devotion to his mother, died of heart failure in Chicago at the age of 18.

 

Anton/Anthony Berger (1832-after 1897) was born in Frankfurt, Germany and studied art at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut art museum and art school in Frankfurt. He immigrated to the United States in 1854 and filed a declaration of intent to become an American citizen in December 1854 in New York. By 1855, he was working for Matthew Brady, preparing oil paintings from photographs for wealthy clients. In May 1861, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. By 1863, he was the manager of Matthew Brady’s Washington, D.C. studio. A few days after the Battle of Gettysburg, Berger traveled with fellow Brady employee David Woodbury to take photographs of the battlefield and returned in November to take photographs of the cemetery dedication, when Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. He returned to Brooklyn after the war and worked as an artist and photographer. In 1897, he lived in New York City and received a U.S. passport. He declared his intention to return with his wife to the United States after a visit to Europe. In 1900, his “celebrated oil painting of Abraham Lincoln” exhibited in the Frankfurt Art gallery was transferred to the U.S. consulate in Berlin.

 

 

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

 

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