(Lincoln, Abraham)

The drawing on stiff paper (7 1/2 x 4 3/8 in.; 191 x 112 mm), titled lower left "At Willard's June 1864," depicting Lincoln standing at full length at a window, facing three-quarters left, wearing a black three-piece suit and top hat, and holding a rolled up newspaper in his right hand; lightly browned, a tiny hole at top margin, a tiny surface abrasion at left margin, remnant of earlier mount on verso. The manuscript on paper on wove paper (8 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.; 216 x 187 mm).

The drawing on stiff paper (7 1/2 x 4 3/8 in.; 191 x 112 mm), titled lower left "At Willard's June 1864," depicting Lincoln standing at full length, facing three-quarters left, wearing a black three-piece suit and top hat, and holding a rolled up newspaper in his right hand; lightly browned, a tiny hole at top margin, a tiny surface abrasion at left margin, remnant of earlier mount on verso. The manuscript on paper on wove paper (8 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.; 216 x 187 mm).
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A lost Morand portrait of Lincoln, with the artist's account of the circumstances of the drawing. Little is known of Pierre Morand, other than that he was French and that during the Civil War he was acquainted enough with Lincoln to make a number of informal pencil drawings of the President, most of which are now in institutions. The present drawing is recorded in the 1899 Grolier Club exhibition catalogue of A Collection of Engraved and other Portraits of Lincoln, no. 149, and it was sold as lot 386 in the auction of the "Library of the late Major William H, Lambert, Part V, Lincolniana, Third Section: The Portrait Collection" (Anderson Galleries, April 30, 1914). The drawing has, however, been lost to sight for the last century.

This Morand portrait of Lincoln is of particular interest because his accompanying narrative includes a characteristic example of the President's humor: "In June 1864, Mr Lincoln had been calling upon some sick statesman at the hotel, when in the hall he met Hon. J. B. Blair of WVa. and Hon Joseph Segar, of loyal Virginia, both of the House of Representatives, in whose company I happened to be. After putting down the window shade, Mr Lincoln rested his elbows upon the sill, crossed his legs and, with a semi-humorous twinkle, asked what noise that was going on down stairs.

"'Nothing of consequence, Mr President,' replied Mr Segar, [']only Senator Saulsbury cutting up in the barber-shop.'

"'I thought it sounded like that,' pensively remarked Mr Lincoln."

Willard Saulsbury was a Democrat Senator from Delaware and one of Lincoln's most intemperate critics in Washington. In 1863, while apparently intoxicated, he attacked the President in what John Hay described as "language fit only for a drunken fishwife." Reprimanded by Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, presiding over the Senate, Saulsbury was eventually removed from the chamber, but not before threatening the sergeant-at-arms with a revolver.