(LINCOLN ABRAHAM) Middleton Elijah C; lithographer Untitled

Sale 2517 - Lot 137

Price Realized: $ 281

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

"YOUR PICTURE . . . IS, IN THE MAIN, VERY GOOD" (LINCOLN, ABRAHAM.) Middleton, Elijah C.; lithographer. Untitled portrait which the President famously critiqued at length. Tinted lithograph, 17 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches, with gilt border; 3 repaired tears extending into blank part of image area, small hole in upper border, minor dampstaining. Cincinnati, OH: Middleton, Strobridge & Co., [1864]

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The original image for this portrait was a photograph by Anthony Berger in Mathew Brady's Washington studio on 9 February 1864, later used for the five-dollar bill. Middleton, Strobridge & Co. produced this preliminary uncolored lithograph with Lincoln's facsimile signature and 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. Incorporating Lincoln's suggestions, it was later released as a chromolithograph in "warranted oil colors." Holzer, Lincoln Image, pages 136-140; Meserve 87; and the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, page VIII:191.