Description

This engraving features a head and shoulders portrait of President Abraham Lincoln in a decorative oval frame. Lincoln is shown wearing a black frock coat, waistcoat, and bow tie. The background is textured with a title plate below the image. See ID number 71.2009.081.1374 for a similar portrait of General Ulysses S. Grant engraved by William E. Marshall. Part of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum William Edgar Marshall (1837-1906) was born in New York. He began his career as an engraver by engraving decorative pocketwatch covers while still a teenager. Marshall studied in France during the Civil War and returned to the U. S. in 1865 after which he began his painting of Abraham Lincoln. The subsequent print adaptation of the painting published by Ticknor & Fields was very favorably regarded by critics as well as those who had known Lincoln.