"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Abraham Lincoln



This Statue of Abraham Lincoln by Andrew O'Connor stands in Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Washington DC.


It was proposed in 1914 by Rhode Island Sons of Veterans Association to stand on the grounds of The State House in Providence. In the 1930 the Lincoln Memorial Commission commissioned the statue. By 1930 O'Connor had finished it but the Memorial Commission had not raised enough money to buy it.


In 1931 O'Connor took the statue to Paris for the Spring Salon. When O'Connor died in 1941 the statue was still in the warehouse of The Gorham Manufacturing Company, the founder. In 1947  the Gorham Company sent it to Fort Lincoln Cemetery.

 A Statue of the  Great Emancipator Exhibited in Paris: Andrew O'Connor
American Sculptor, With His Statue of Abraham Lincoln, Which is to Be Placed in Front of the State Capitol in Providence R. I. (Times Wide World Photos, Paris Bureau - Online Here)

Workers welcomed the statue of Lincoln to Fort Lincoln Cemetery in 1947. (Online Here)


This historical marker at Fort Lincoln Cemetery describes the statue.

"This statue of the Great Emancipator portrays in his last days the thin, tired, war-worn president in thoughtful and deep meditation and is considered one of the finest bronze statues ever made of President Lincoln. It was created by one of America’s foremost sculptors, Andrew O’Connor, who also did the statue of Lincoln which now stands in front of the State House in Springfield, Illinois. It was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island, in the most permanent material that nature had given man–enduring bronze."

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