Item #238011 Death-Bed of Lincoln, April 15, 1865. Abraham Lincoln, John Littlefield, photographer.

Death-Bed of Lincoln, April 15, 1865.

Washington, D.C: John H. Littlefield; Wm. Terry, Printer, 1866.

Price: $750.00


About the item

Photograph by John Goldin of Littlefield's painting, on printed mount. Image 8 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.; mounted to 13 x 17 in. Faint toning to mount; fine.

Item #238011

A published photograph of Littlefield's hyper-realistic Lincoln death-bed painting, each figure meticulously rendered from photographs.
Littlefield studied law under Lincoln in 1858, stumped for him in his Presidential bid, and was rewarded with a position in the Treasury Department. After Lincoln's death, Littlefield invented this tableau of twenty-five people ranged around the death-bed, including Vice-President Johnson, Surgeon Charles Leale, and Mrs. Lincoln.
"The artist used photographs as models for the twenty-five people gathered in the death room, but his profile of the dying Lincoln shows a first-hand acquaintance" (Ostendorf, LINCOLN'S PHOTOGRAPHS, p. 279).