In the foyer of the house in which I grew up this portrait of President Lincoln hung by our front door. When we sold the house Abraham Lincoln had been welcoming our visitors for thirty years. It was then that I discovered an inscription written in my deceased father’s hand on the back of the framed photograph that read:
The Pencil Picture
This photograph was taken on April 9th, 1865 just five days before his death. Mr. Lincoln and his small son Tad had gone for a walk this Sunday morning and stopped in at Gardner’s Gallery in Washington. Mr. Gardner had just persuaded Mr. Lincoln to pose for a portrait, when the little boy Tad had asked for his father to sharpen a pencil which he still had in his hand when Mr. Gardner took the picture. At the time Mr. Gardner was going to develop this negative he noticed he had not enough bromide in the cellodian so he put it aside in the closet, and apparently forgot all about it. After the death of Mr. Gardner which occurred 29 yrs later, the gallery was purchased by Mr. Porter of Boston Who found this negative. He immediately made a print and gasped at the excellence of the portrait, the curious admixture of humor and sadness, of gentleness and kindness, and stern purpose, and had it copyrighted in 1894, calling it the Pencil Picture.
