Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
February/March 1994 | Volume 45, Issue 1
Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
February/March 1994 | Volume 45, Issue 1
The face stares at us across time, a haunting patina of sadness clinging to its outsized features. It is a strong, young face—surely innocent of, yet somehow foreshadowing, the bloody future that lay ahead for America. Its owners say it is the very first photographic portrait of Abraham Lincoln, a precious, hitherto unknown sixth-plate daguerreotype made in Springfield at the time Lincoln had risen no higher in politics than the Illinois legislature. Its detractors argue that it is merely a look-alike. Although collectors uncover so-called new and unknown Lincoln photographs with numbing regularity—images invariably proven spurious—this portrait is different. It comes with a pedigree, having descended from the family of the sixteenth President’s own private secretary. Feature by feature, the subject is uncannily Lincolnesque—even if the overall impression fails to mesh with his known photographs (not surprising, since all but one were taken at least fourteen years later). The familiar giant ear protrudes like a pitcher handle, and the coarse, carelessly brushed (or, more likely, hand-arranged) hair clumps in spikes at the top and side of the head. The “disordered condition” of his hair, as Lincoln once described it, would cause his wife, Mary, to take a powerful dislike to a later, equally unkempt image and perhaps, too, accounts for the longtime obscurity of this pose. The nose looks odd somehow—almost glowing. Does it reflect the harsh glare from the unfiltered light pouring down from the primitive photographer’s skylight? Or might it be the sunburned nose of a circuitriding lawyer who traveled endless miles on horseback on the open prairie in search of legal business? The shirt collar is pulled up high, perhaps by the photographer himself, in an attempt to conceal as much as possible of Lincoln’s long, scrawny neck. Yet one can almost see the strong chest muscles beneath the fabric of the vest. The mouth does look softer than the one in later portraits. But like that in all the known images, it can be made to perform a uniquely Lincolnian trick of nature: Cover one side of the mouth, and the other side curls up in a half-smile; now cover the smiling side, and the other sags in a frown. Is this a coincidence, or as scholars have speculated in explaining the phenomenon in other portraits, the lingering after-effect of a horse’s kick to the child Lincoln’s head—an injury that left him unconscious for nearly a day and may also have caused the eerily roving eye visible in later pictures? As for the eyes, they look lighter and brighter here than the mournful ones so familiar in later photographs and in the iconic engraving on the five-dollar bill. But harsh lighting may again explain the translucence. Besides, not even Lincoln’s contemporaries could agree on their precise hue, variously described as blue, gray, and hazel (for the record, Lincoln called them gray). And