[Abraham Lincoln, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left. Reversed and retouched copy of photo by Alexander Hessler]

"On February 28, 1857, Alexander Hesler took the famous photograph of Lincoln in Chicago. About seven months earlier, so the story went, Lincoln had posed for William H. Masters of Princeton, Illinois. No photograph by Masters has turned up, and there is no evidence that he took Lincoln's picture. But the Masters studio, avoiding the use of the word photograph, widely distributed the picture "from the Masters Portrait made July 4, 1856, at Princeton, Ill." So extensive were the sales of the Masters portrait, a reversed and retouched copy of Hesler's likeness, that it has become the best known of Lincoln faked photographs." (Source: Ostendorf, p. 258)

Ostendorf, no. 2 (variant)
Meserve, no. 101
Published in: Lincoln's photographs: a complete album / by Lloyd Ostendorf. Dayton, OH: Rockywood Press, 1998, p. 258.