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Treasures of the White House: Abraham Lincoln
- Artist
- George P. A. Healy (1813-1894)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas, 73 3/4 x 55 5/8 inches (187.3 x 141.3 cm)
- Credit
- Bequest of Mrs. Robert Todd Lincoln, 1939
Treasures of the White House: Abraham Lincoln
Signed and dated lower left: G.P.A. Healy / 1869
939.1388.1
Lincoln's last public address was delivered on April 11, 1865, from a window above the north door of the White House, two days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. His
Healy had begun work on a portrait of Abraham Lincoln for which the President had sat in August 1864. The assassination, however, turned the artist's thoughts in another direction, and he conceived The Peacemakers, the small version of which was completed late in 1868. In The
The portrait was painted in Paris and sent to Washington in response to an act of Congress (March 3, 1869) authorizing a Lincoln portrait for the White House. When President Grant chose another likeness by William Cogswell, Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln purchased the Healy, later declaring that "1 have never seen a portrait of my father which is to be compared with it in any way."
Source: William Kloss, et. al., Art in the White House, New York: Abrams, 1992.
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