[Cartes-de-Visite/Abraham Lincoln]. 2 Cartes-de-visite of Abraham Lincoln by Alex. Gardner and J. H. Bufford & Sons/John Soule. Provenance: Collection of Walter Stolwein, an amateur photographer, avid collector of photographs and photography equipment and member of the Silver Spring Camera Club and the Chesapeake Antiquarian Photographic Society. ++ CDV of Lincoln, seen with a slight smile, taken by Alexander Gardner on February 5, 1865, before his assassination and a few weeks before his second inauguration. Image 3 ¾” x 2 ¼”, mount 3 ¾” x 2 ¾” with double border. Front has brown stain below portrait and several dark pinhole spots, reverse with maker’s mark, “GARDNER, PHOTOGRAPHER,/511 Seventh street (sic) and 332 Penna. Avenue./PUBLISHED BY PHILP (Sic) & SOLOMONS,/WASHINGTON D.C.” Slight toning on reverse, otherwise good. ++ Carte-De-Visite three-quarter portrait of Lincoln, shown with beard. Image 3 5/8” x 2 3/8” with caption on front “BUFFORD’S PRINT. SOULE, PHOTO./Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1865 by J.H. Bufford, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Buffords Publishing House….313 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.” Reverse with maker’s credit: “J.H. BUFFORD & SONS,/PUBLISHERS/TRADEMARK/313 WASHINGTON STREET. BOSTON,” pencil notation on top edge “KK90-0,” slight toning, otherwise good. The J.H. Bufford Company, print publishers, was one of the first American firms to produce copies of their large portraits of historic persons in the carte-de-visite format. The photographic copying was done by John Soule, who was credited in the Bufford copyright notice, 1862, 1863. [Darrah, 59]