The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

Albumen print on a larger cardstock mount. Image 6 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.; overall 10 x 8 in. Some scratching along edges, closed tear. Unexamined off of mount.

THE RARE LARGE FORMAT PRINT OF BOOTH AND THE DEVIL; POSSIBLY THE ONLY COPY EXTANT.

The present image (altered from Gutman 30 in Gutman and Graham's John Wilkes Booth, Himself) depicts John Wilkes Booth standing outside the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, holding a Deringer pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, an ethereal Satan whispering into his ear.

On 2 May 1865, the U.S. War Department issued an order decreeing that “The sale of portraits of any rebel officer or soldier, or of J. Wilkes Booth, the murderer of President Lincoln, is forbidden hereafter in this department. All commanding officers and provost-marshals are hereby ordered to take possession of such picture wherever found exposed for sale, and report the names of the parties so offending, who will be liable to arrest and imprisonment if again guilty of a violation of this order.” The order applied primarily to Washington, D.C., and Maryland; however, because it proved impossible to enforce, the ban was rescinded a few weeks later. In large part because of the ban, images of Booth became wildly popular, and for a time, enterprising merchants, in an attempt to avoid condoning Booth's crime, created new images incorporating Booth's photograph or likeness into scenes which cast him as a villain, either tempted to do the devil's work or tormented by the memory of his act.

REFERENCES:
Gutman 42 ("Generally this could be found as carte de visite, but one rare large format 6 1/2 inches high, is known")