Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1913 — RARE PORTRAIT OF “HONEST ABE" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RARE PORTRAIT OF “HONEST ABE"

'Picture Bejieved to Have Been Taken for Purposes of Presidential Campaign. IS NOW AT LEWISTON, MAINE ' _ * History of the Picture I* Fragmentary, Though It Seems Most Probable It Was Made at Quincy, 111., In the year 1848.

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which those who are familiar with it believe to be a very rare one, hangs upon the walls of a Lewiston law office. At all events no one has yet been found who remembers to have seen one just like it among any of the many portraits of the martyred president which have been published so frequently during the last few years in many of the leading magazines of the country. The picture Is a lithograph, evidently taken from a crayon drawing, and shows Mr. Lincoln as a somewhat younger man than the majority of his portraits do. Under it is a facsimile of his autograph, together with the words: “Republican Candidate for President, 1860,” showing that it was evidently used as a campaign portrait during the campaign preceding his first election. The portrait was obtained by the late John Read, father of the present owner of it, at Quincy, 111., during that campaign, but who took the original from which it waß made is unknown. Some years ago a book salesman who saw it claimed to know something about it, and said that it was

taken soon after the convention at which Mr. Lincoln was nominated, and that the original photograph was taken at the request of Mr. Medtil of Chicago, for campaign jurposes. He said further that when Mr. Lincoln went in to the photographer’s to sit for the picture he had just come from the barber’B, and his hair was plastered smoothly down upon his forehead, but that happening to catch sight of himself in a glass, Mr. Lincdln remarked that no one would know him ,with his hair so smooth as that, and ran his hands through it, giving it the disheveled appearance of the portrait. r He said further that iu making the enlargement for the lithograph the portrait was somewhat Idealized, and much of the natural ruggedness of Mr. Lincoln’s features were smoothed out. Whether this man was correct In his belief as to the origin of the portrait, it is undoubtedly true that it is considerably idealised, as will be seen -from the copy, the portrait, while retaining the essential features which are so well known, nevertheless making him a far handsomer man than |he is currently reported to have been. And yet Mrs. Read, who has seen Ihim often as a young man, always said that It was an excellent likeness, and that it looked just as Mr. Lincoln did at the time he made this speech at Quincy, in the course of the famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas on October 13, 1868.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. From an Old Print.