214

Elijah C. Middleton; lithographer.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln in "warranted oil colors."

Cincinnati, OH, 1864
Chromolithograph, about 17 x 14 inches oval, mounted on canvas and affixed to wooden stretcher as issued; faint ink lithographer's stamp on verso. With original frame, gilt on plaster and wood, some repairs; not examined outside of frame. 

The original image for this portrait was a photograph by Anthony Berger in Mathew Brady's Washington studio on 9 February 1864. You may recognize it from the five-dollar bill. Middleton had a copy sent to the president, who offered this critique in a 30 December 1864 letter: "Your picture . . . is, in the main, very good. From a line across immediately above the eye-brows, downward it appears to me perfect. Above such a line I think it is not so good--that is, while it gives perhaps a better fore-head, it is not quite true to the original." Lincoln also suggested that Middleton should study a photograph, apparently not realizing that this was a faithful rendition of one. See Holzer, Lincoln Image, page 136; Meserve 87; and the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, page VIII:191.

Provenance: inscribed on verso " From Arbor Hill, Home of John D. Clarke" in an early hand. John Davenport Clarke (1873-1933), who was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He died in a car crash near his Arbor Hill estate in Fraser, Delaware County, NY, while still in office.

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