Conant and Abraham Lincoln

In September 1860, when Lincoln was a presidential candidate, Alban Jasper Conant (1821-1915) painted Lincoln from life. The artist described Lincoln’s face:

The line of the nose…was straight on one side and slightly curved on the other. The lower lip was fuller on the right side than on the left, as if swollen from a blow or the sting on an insect. The lines of the lower part of the face met in sharp angles on each side of the mouth. Above all, the heavy mass of black hair, which was quite long stood out [illegible] it fell over his forehead, which was fine and symmetrical. When his features were in repose his expression was sad and thoughtful. And this was intensified by the drooping of the lower eyelid, showing the white below the iris.^[2]

Conant included in his portrayal one of Lincoln’s distinctive features: his swollen lower right lip. The size of the lower lip is evident in Lincoln’s life mask.

A. J. Conant also wrote:

…I had my first glimpse of him. He was standing at the other end of the room, surrounded by his friends. His face alight with interest and pleasure, smiling, genial – an astonishing contrast to the serious, homely pictures of him with which I had become familiar.

But when Conant arrived the next morning for the first sitting, “he turned from his heaped up desk and threw himself wearily into a chair, I looked at him in dismay. All the light and life had gone out of his face. It had settled into heavy, sagging lines.” Conant’s recollection of Lincoln echoed the words of a literary publisher, James Grant Wilson (1832-1914), “his grayish-brown eyes were perhaps the saddest I ever saw. However, when a good story was told, whether by himself or another, his homely face lighted up till he was positively handsome.” ^[3]

The painter engaged the presidential candidate in political conversation and painted The Smiling Lincoln. Conant depicted Lincoln with his head firm and straight, his cheeks smooth, his left eyebrow slightly arched, and camouflaged the mole within the color of the cheek. Conant eliminated the cleft chin and painted Lincoln’s eyes less deeply set than in life. He colored the eyes dark blue.

“…When it was finished, Mrs. Lincoln came down to have a look at it before I took it away… “Yes,” she said, “that is good. That is the way Mr. Lincoln looks among his friends.” Then she added with a little laugh, “I only hope he will look that way in November.”^[4]

Throughout his life, Conant continued to paint portraits of Abraham Lincoln, just as Gilbert Stuart and Rembrandt Peale profitably painted George Washington over and over again. Conant changed his portrayal of Lincoln over the years. The first image is, if not the painting from life, is one painted near the same time. The second is adapted from a later photograph of Lincoln, possibly Alexander Gardner’s from February 1865. The third is actually a high quality print published from the original in the collection of T. B. Walker, a wealthy businessman and art connoisseur, whose collection became the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Alexander Gardner’s iconic photograph of Lincoln may have been the basis for Walker’s painting. In the fourth, painted in 1911, Conant returned to his earliest depictions of the 16th president.