Extremely rare 1863 view!
(1809-1865) Illinois lawyer. 16th President U.S.A., 1861-65. Led the Union through the Civil War. Famous for The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves, and the Gettysburg Address, at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. His second term in the White House was cut short when he became the first American President to be assassinated. He was shot by the famous actor, John Wilkes Booth, at Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865, dying early the next morning.
Wet plate, albumen carte de visite photograph, mounted to 2 3/8 x 4 card. Standing view with hand resting on studio column. Back mark: E. Anthony, New York, made from a photographic negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery. Ostendorf #-69. Extremely rare pose!
This view was taken at Mathew Brady's studio in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 17, 1863. Brady's operator, a Frenchman named Thomas Le Mere, told Mr. Lincoln that there was a "considerable call" for a full length standing photograph of him. Jokingly, Lincoln responded, "Can it be taken with a single negative?" After Le Mere's reassurance, the President explained that he had seen a very wide landscape photograph which on inspection, proved to be a neatly joined series of photographs. "I thought perhaps this method might be necessary for my full length landscape." The carefully posed photograph was taken with a multiple lens camera, and when Lincoln saw the uncut glass negative, he exclaimed, "They look about as alike as three peas!" Source: Lincoln in Photographs.
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