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Abraham Lincoln early albumen photograph signed

610. Abraham Lincoln early albumen photograph signed.

The Property of a New England Family

Extremely rare early signed photograph of the beardless Lincoln taken at the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Abraham Lincoln Early Albumen Photograph Signed, oval portrait measuring approx. 255 x 204mm. (photograph dimensions approx 183 x 134mm.), most probably taken in Peoria, Illinois by Roderick M. Cole in 1858. Affixed to the original photographer's matte with thin pencil rule encircling the photograph. The image depicts the beardless future President from the waist up, in vest with part of a curtain and tassel visible to his right. Signed in ink, with sentiment, in the lower margin, "Yours truly A. Lincoln."

The photograph exhibits very minor toning from an old frame, two small ink stains at extreme edge at lower right and very light water stain at lower left just catching the first two letters of "Your" in inscription; otherwise, in excellent condition.

A truly exceptional early Lincoln portrait, one of the best known of the beardless portraits and one which Lincoln himself seems to have favored, perhaps for the suggestion of firm determination in the lips which appear tightly compressed. There is uncertainty as to the identity of the photographer, and several cities in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri were proposed as the site of the sitting, but the image is most convincingly ascribed to Roderick M. Cole, a daguerreotypist and photographer who operated a studio in Peoria from about 1857 with his brother, Henry. Peoria, where Lincoln had delivered one of his key early addresses in 1854, was visited by Lincoln at least twice in 1858 during his famous campaign for the Senate seat against Stephen A. Douglas. If Cole was indeed the photographer, the image was probably created on one of those occasions. The most convincing evidence for the Roderick Cole claim is a letter cited by most authorities from Cole dated July 3, 1905, to Judge McCullough, in which Cole maintains that the photo "is a copy of a dagueratype [sp.] that I made in my gallery in this city [Peoria] to my studio to give me a sitting…and when I had my plate ready, he said to me, 'I cannot see why all you artists want a likeness of me unless it is because I am the homeliest man in the State of Illinois.'" The image was extensively used on campaign ribbons in the 1860 Presidential campaign, and Lincoln would sign photographic prints for visitors on occasion.

This is, without question, the finest signed example of this photograph to ever appear at public auction.

Provenance: Mildred Esther Deischer (1905-1998), of Iowa and Oregon – the present owner. $150000 - $200000