The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

5 1/4 x 5 3/4 in. cabinet card on Jackson's original studio mount (staining to image and mount verso, mount chipped with loss near lower border, affecting imprint, light wear to edges). Provenance: G.W. Froberg (notation affixed to slip on verso: "Given [sic] me in 1923 by an aged Civil War surgeon I was called upon to care for during his last illness").

Following a speech Lincoln gave in Pittsfield, Illinois, on 1 October 1858 while running for the United States Senate against Stephen A. Douglas, he was approached by his host, a local lawyer named Daniel Gilmer, and asked to pose for a photograph. Shortly before giving his speech Lincoln was informed that a storekeeper named Charles Lame had been injured the night before while testing a cannon that as per tradition was to be fired before the speech; so severe were Lame's injuries that his wife refused to allow Lincoln to see him, and so Lincoln asked that two copies of the photograph be made, one of which would be given to Lame. The present photograph was taken by Jackson from the original ambrotype following a move to Hannibal, Missouri, in the 1880s.

The lines in Lincoln's face, plainly visible in this portrait, were noted by his intimate friend Joshua F. Speed, who wrote: "His face and forehead were wrinkled even in his youth. They deepened in age, 'as streams their channels deeper wear.' Generally he was a very sad man, and his countenance indicated it." EXCEEDINGLY RARE.

REFERENCES:
Ostendorf O-10 (ambrotype), pp.22-23