Existing comment:
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865
In 1858, at the time of his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln yielded to the request of Mrs. Harriet Chapman for a photographic portrait. When sending the resulting image to Chapman, who was his stepmother's granddaughter, Lincoln noted, "This is not a very good-looking picture but it's the best that could be produced from the poor subject." One of several contemporaneous copies of the original portrait, this laterally reversed ambrotype presents a mirror image of its subject, so that Lincoln's distinctive mole appears on the left rather than the right side of his face.
Fetter's Picture Gallery, c 1858-60 |