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Original 2.25 x 4 carte-de-visite photo of Abraham Lincoln in his famed seated ‘penny pose,’ originally taken by Anthony Berger, manager of Mathew Brady's Gallery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1864. Published by E. & H. T. Anthony of New York, from a photographic negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery. The reverse bears ink and pencil notations. In fine condition.
Lincoln sat for over fifty official portraits from his lawyering days on the court circuit until his assassination; he understood the importance of creating a dignified public profile. Lincoln joked after his first photo shoot with Brady in 1860 that the photographer’s portrait helped secure his Republican nomination as president. Brady's images of Lincoln are among the most iconic.
Mathew Brady's name is synonymous with Civil War-era photography, both because of the candid images of battlefields and camp life that he and his assistants captured, but also because of his portraits of significant historical players, like Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. Brady’s photography business boomed from taking carte-de-visite images of departing soldiers at the onset of the Civil War. In 1861, Lincoln granted the photographer permission to tour battlefields and encampments to document the war experience. Brady spent an estimated $100,000 of his own money taking approximately 10,000 Civil War-related negatives. The photographer was bitterly disappointed when the federal government did not buy his collection after the war, and his heavy investment in the project led to his subsequent bankruptcy.
