George Edwin Bissell (1839-1920)
Lincoln Holding a Copy of the Proclamation of Emancipation
stamped 'GEO.E.BISSELL/SC/COPYRIGHT 1898/GORHAM CO. Q4...' (along the back edge of the base)
bronze with brown and verdigris patina
height 8 1/4 in. (21.0 cm)
Footnotes:
N.B.
George Bissell was born in Connecticut, the son of a quarryman and marble-cutter. During the Civil War he served in the 23rd Connecticut Volunteers in the Department of the Gulf (1862-1863). After the war Bissell joined his father's marble business in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1875, after executing some successful commissions, Bissell left to study in Europe at the English Academy in Rome and the Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Thereafter he divided his time between the United States, Paris, and Florence.

This small bronze standing Lincoln issued by the Gorham Company is based on Bissell's Lincoln Memorial (In Memory of Scottish-American Soldiers), Old Carlton Burying Ground, Edinburgh, Scotland, completed in 1893. Bissell executed a second large-scale version in 1902 for Lincoln Park, Clermont, Iowa.