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Lot #
366
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Lincoln Potrait By Well Known Artist
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| 16-1/2 x 21 in period frame, unsigned, fine. The work is by Freeman Woodcock Thorp (1844-1922) using two Thorp in-person sketches of Lincoln. Thorps first sketch: The Inaugural Train was going to pass through Geneva Ohio on February 15, 1861, on the way to Washington. The young Thorp took his sketching materials along with him to watch the train carrying his hero pass by. As fate would have it, the train suffered a breakdown and had to spend some time in the town for repairs. Lincoln, ever the people's man, appeared on the rear platform to greet the residents. Freem managed to get within a few feet of him and sketched the president-elect, listening as best he could while trying to get the lines around his mouth just right. This was his first sketch of Lincoln. Thorp did enlist and drew the attention of Grant. Thorps second sketch: Grant did remember him and later selected Thorp and another soldier to carry an important secret missive to Secretary of War Stanton in Washington from the camp in Tennessee. The two carried out the dangerous mission, riding 1000 miles on horseback, much of it through enemy territory. Stanton asked him if there was any favor he could grant to pay back his bravery. Thorp was aware that Abraham Lincoln was going to be at the Gettysburg battlefield on November 19, 1863 so he asked that he be allowed to attend and get as close as possible to the president. The favor was granted and young Thorp found himself (once again) about ten feet away from the president as Lincoln delivered his immortal Gettysburg Address. This was his second sketch of Lincoln. In 1920, Thorp was paid the ultimate tribute by the U.S. Senate. They passed a resolution and a Joint Committee was directed "to engage an artist of reputation and ability to paint an oil portrait of the late Abraham Lincoln, former President of the United States, and to place the same in the Senate wing of the Capitol Building, at a cost not to exceed $2,000." Several weeks later, the committee authorized payment of $2,000 to Freeman Thorp for his portrait of Lincoln. Thorp wrote a letter to the Joint Committee of Congress in 1920 describing the intensity with which he had observed Lincoln: "I studied him very carefully and thoroughly from life just before his inauguration, and later at the White House and at Gettysburg when he made his famous address, sketching him, making a descriptive delineation such as artists use, memorizing his expression and how he looked when animated." The artist believed that these observations allowed him to create an accurate portrait of the president, and that "it would be impracticable for any future portrait painter who had not known him in life to put the real Lincoln on canvas." Thorp traveled to Washington for the unveiling, also attended by Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln who commented, "It's more like father than any likeness I have ever seen!" This particular Lincoln portrait still hangs in the Senate wing of the Capitol, one of eight (the most of any American-born artist) of his portraits in the Capitol and the ONLY portrait of Lincoln there. Painting the "perfect" Lincoln was a lifelong mission for Thorp. He got close enough to sketch his hero at least twice: once when Lincoln's Inaugural Train had to make a stop in Geneva, Ohio in 1861, and again at the Gettysburg battlefield in 1863. Our research has shown that Thorp made as many as five paintings of Lincoln from these sketches and his memories of the great man. One, of course, was commissioned by Congress in 1920 and is still hanging in the Senate Wing of the U.S. Capitol (the only Lincoln portrait there). Others of his Lincoln portraits have, at one time or another, been located in Minnesota at Camp Lincoln for Boys, the Pequot Lakes Post Office (almost certainly this present example), and Carleton College. Thorp's daughter, Sarah Thorp Heald, donated one of the original sketches from life to the Crow Wing County Historical Society. The other life sketch (Gettysburg) was donated by Thorp's grandson, Joseph Heald, to Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 who placed it in the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas. The painting is accompanied 20 pages of photo copies of newspaper articles, one showing the painting hanging in the Pequot Post Office. | |||||||||||
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For questions or help with a bid call: 336.584.3330.
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