[Abraham Lincoln, Congressman-elect from Illinois. Three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing front]

This daguerreotype is the earliest-known photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken at age 37 when he was a frontier lawyer in Springfield and Congressman-elect from Illinois. (Source: Ostendorf, p. 4)

Attributed to Nicholas H. Shepherd, based on the recollections of Gibson W. Harris, a law student in Lincoln's office from 1845 to 1847. (Source: Gibson William Harris, "My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln," Women's Home Companion (November 1903), 9-11.) Robert Lincoln, son of the President, thought the photo was made in either St. Louis or Washington during his father's term in Congress.
Hallmark: Rinhart 46.
Case: variant of Rinhart 140.
Ostendorf, no. 1
Meserve, no. 1
Gift; Mary Lincoln Isham; 1937.
Forms part of: Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress).
Published in: Lincoln's photographs: a complete album / by Lloyd Ostendorf. Dayton, OH: Rockywood Press, 1998, p. 4-5.
Published in: The tradition of technology : Landmarks of Western technology ... / Leonard C. Bruno. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1995, p. 111 & 243.
Published in: Facing the light / H. Pfister. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978, p. 332.
Exhibited: "With Malice Toward None : The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition" at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 2009.
Exhibited as a digital copy in: "Not an Ostrich: And Other Images from America's Library" at the Annenberg Space for Photography, 2018; Icons section.
Annenberg batch 19