Abraham Lincoln: Photograph (CDV) Signed
“I don’t know that I have any favorite portrait of myself; but I have thought that if I looked like any of the likenesses of me that have been taken, I look most like that one.” — Lincoln, quoted in Ostendorf, Lincoln’ s Photographs, no. 87
SIGNED CDV PHOTOGRAPH FROM 1864 MATHEW BRADY SITTING WITH DIRECT FAMILY PROVENANCE.
Vignetted photographic portrait from Mathew Brady’s sitting of January 8, 1864, signed by Lincoln along the lower edge of the photograph.
The photograph descended directly through Lincoln’s family, from the president and Mary Todd Lincoln through five generations to the family of Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, the last surviving direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln. The photograph remained within Lincoln’s direct family until it appeared at Cowan’s Auctions in 2010, offered as lot 272 along with other items descended in the Lincoln-Beckwith lineage. It had passed from Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln to their son Robert Todd Lincoln, and from him to his daughter Jessie Lincoln Beckwith. Jessie’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (1904–1985), was the last surviving direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln; the photograph passed to his wife, Margaret Fristoe Beckwith, and by descent to her daughter, from whose estate it was consigned to the sale.
Albumen print, carte-de-visite, on Brady’s photographic mount; 1864. Small abrasion at bottom margin, toning to verso; ink blot (original) on "A."
Price: $150,000 .