2020-09 Putnal
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2020
Original Harrison photographic print from an 1858 ambrotype, 3-1/2" x 5" oval to larger "Harrison" mount, fine. Accompanying is a copy of an original note attesting to the provenance. The original ambrotype photograph shows Abraham Lincoln while he was in Monmouth, Illinois, to give a speech and two days before his sixth debate with Stephen A. Douglas during their campaigns for a U.S. Senate seat. Lincoln had the photograph taken to give to Mrs. Harriet Chapman, granddaughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln, with whom he had stayed during the fourth debate. (Source: Ostendorf, p. 21). In 1896, when journalist Ida Tarbell was writing her 20-part series on Lincoln for McClure's Magazine, Thomson's widow, Margareta, was asked to lend the Lincoln ambrotype to be sent to New York City for an engraving to illustrate the article, but she refused. Eventually, through the intervention of Col. Clark E. Carr of Galesburg and State Sen. Fred E. Harding of Monmouth, she allowed the picture to be copied by Galesburg photographer Thomas Harrison, who forwarded a print to McClure's.
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