Abraham Lincoln
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
NPG.96.139
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
MerchantBoat builderLawyerAbraham Lincoln: MaleSoldierPostmasterPresident of USIllinoisSurveyorIllinois
About this artwork
On May 26, 1860, the illustrated newspaper Harper’s Weekly presented its readers with a large-scale portrait of Abraham Lincoln, who had secured the Republican Party’s nomination for president only a week earlier. Newspapers at that time lacked the technology to publish photographic images. For this reason, Harper’s Weekly relied on one of its artists to produce an engraving of Lincoln—based on Mathew Brady’s photograph—that could be printed along with the paper’s text. The publication enjoyed a...