Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 129

Price Realized: $ 406
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(PRINTS--ASSASSINATION.) Gardner, Alexander, photographer. The Last Moments of Lincoln, 15th April, 1865. Albumen photograph, 12 3/4 x 18 1/2 inches, on original printed mount with gilt border, 17 3/4 x 21 3/4 inches; dampstaining and toning, numerous scratches in image, two repaired closed tears to mount. Washington, DC: Philip & Solomons, 1866

Additional Details

A photograph of an original painting by E.H. Miller, depicting Lincoln on his deathbed surrounded by 20 visitors, each named in the caption. It was copyrighted by the photographer Alexander Gardner, and was presumably commissioned by him for this purpose. One distinctive feature of this composition was the presence of the Rev. Phineas Gurley standing at center to offer his final prayers while Mary and Robert Lincoln are apparently bent over in tears. This copy was inscribed in December 1866 by Charles Augustus Parke (1845-1900) to his first cousin Charles Henry Leonard (1841-1902), both of Indiana. Holzer & Williams, Lincoln's Deathbed in Art and Memory, pages 23-24. We trace one example in OCLC, and no other copies at auction since 1912.