Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865)
Role:Dates:
Portrait Location: John Hay Library 310
Artist: Littlefield, John H. ()
Portrait Date: 1865
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 27 X 21 5/8
Framed Dimensions: 32 X 21 5/8
Brown Portrait Number: 269
Brown Historical Property Number: 2310
Harold Holzer, perhaps the most famous analyzer of the Lincoln image, explains that John H Littlefield's portrait of Lincoln was painted after the photograph of Lincoln taken in 1864 by the Brady Studio's Anthony Berger. This photograph is most famously reproduced on the five-dollar bill. Certainly, money and Abraham Lincoln were two associated factors in the life of John Littlefield. Littlefield's family was from Cicero, Illinois; as young men, the Littlefields were acquainted with Lincoln, and in fact, J.H. Littlefield's brother knew the future president well enough to request, in 1858, that Lincoln permit the future artist to study law under the auspices of the Lincoln-Herndon law office. After Lincoln was elected president, Littlefield left the law office and took a post in the Treasury Department. In Washington D.C., he began working seriously on becoming an artist. Though he certainly had the opportunity to study Lincoln in the flesh, his portrait was not painted from life, and was not completed until after the assassination. After completing the portrait, Littlefield shrewdly took advantage of the brisk trade in Lincoln memorabilia. He founded the Lincoln Publishing Company to sell engravings of his portrait, and also launched a career as a paid lecturer on the subject of his famous benefactor.
This painting was given by Mrs. Charles G. Pierie in 1996.
The Lincoln portraits are part of the Charles Woodberry McLellan Lincoln Collection, purchased by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., from the eponymous collector and donated to Brown in 1923. Since then, the collection has been substantially augmented by gifts and purchases made possible by the generosity of private donors. The collection is appropriately housed in library named after John Hay, a Brown alumnus (1858), and one of two secretaries who served the sixteenth president of the United States. The collection houses many works of art, including busts, paintings, and photography; it contains a notable manuscript collection, made up of speeches, letters, and other documents; it includes a wide collection of sheet music, plays, poems and popular prints; and it contains such interesting ephemera as Lincoln scrimshaw, commemorative plates, medals, and other memorabilia. There is also a library that includes some books owned by Lincoln as well as books about him and the era of American history over which he presided.