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Original 2.25 x 4 carte-de-visite portrait of an artistic rendering of President Abraham Lincoln during his sitting with Alexander Gardner at the latter’s Washington studio on February 5, 1865. The reverse is stamped “650,” bears ink notations, and is marked, "Alex. Gardner, Photographer to the Army of the Potomac…Published by Philip & Solomon, Washington, D.C." In fine condition. This image mirrors that of Gardner’s famous 'cracked-plate' image of Lincoln, his last formal portrait before he was assassinated in April 1865. When the mammoth glass negative cracked, Gardner made only one print from the damaged negative before discarding it.
Alexander Gardner, a former journalist who came from Glasgow in 1856 to join Brady's firm, was an expert in the Scott Archer wetplate or collodion process, the advanced method of photography which by 1861 had almost entirely supplanted earlier processes. As manager of Brady's Washington gallery, Gardner followed the Army of the Potomac during the early years of the war, taking hundreds of pictures, his specialty being stereographs of battle and camp views. When Brady could no longer pay his salary, Gardner established his own gallery on the corner of Seventh and D streets in Washington. Lincoln was the first sitter at Gardner's Washington gallery.
