?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(ABRAHAM LINCOLN.) Elijah C. Middleton; lithographer. Untitled matched portraits of Lincoln and Grant in "warranted oil colors." Pair of chromolithographs, each about 17 x 14 inches oval, mounted on canvas and affixed to wooden stretcher as issued; faint ink lithographer's stamp on verso. With worn original frames, gilt on plaster and wood; not examined outside of frames. Cincinnati, OH, 1864, 1865
The original image for the Lincoln portrait was a photograph by Anthony Berger in Mathew Brady's Washington studio on 9 February 1864, later used for the five-dollar bill. Lincoln offered suggestions after viewing a preliminary engraving. The Grant portrait shows the general in uniform. On the verso of the stretcher is a partial paper label headed "The following testimony is from the family of General Grant," with the text of a 14 January 1865 letter from Grant's parents and sisters, testifying to its accuracy. Both portraits were copyrighted in 1864.
