Signed by Lincoln,
with exceptional provenance
Albumen Carte-de-Visite, Vignetted Portrait of Abraham Lincoln
(Mathew) Brady / Washington: 8 January 1864
Signed “A. Lincoln” on mount below albumen image.
Ostendorf, Lincoln’s Photographs: A Complete Album, # 170.
2.5 x 4 inches overall; remnants of Brady's imprint on verso.
PROVENANCE:
Descended in the family of Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, great grandson of President Abraham Lincoln, and the last of Lincoln’s direct descendants. Beckwith’s mother, Jessie, was one of two daughters of Robert Todd Lincoln and his wife Mary Harlan Lincoln. Robert was the only surviving son of Mary and Abraham Lincoln’s four children.
Abraham (1809-1865) and Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882)
Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926) married Mary E. Harlan (1846-1937)
Jessie Lincoln (1875-1948) married Warren Wallace Beckwith
Margaret (Peggy) Beckwith (1898-1975)
Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (1904-1985)
Margaret Fristoe Beckwith (1921-2009)
Heir of Robert Todd Lincoln and Margaret Fristoe
Sold through Cowan’s Auction, June 10, 2010 (lot 272)
“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, referring to this portrait)