What do you get when you take a portrait of Southern politician John Calhoun (left), and add it to Mathew Brady’s portrait of Abraham Lincoln? Well, you get Lincoln’s standing portrait (right) – probably one of the earliest known composite images in American history. This is not a simple cut & paste job – as you can see below the Calhoun image seems to be more of an etching (wood cut perhaps?) and the image of Lincoln is more realistically detailed. The composite portrait of Lincoln was created sometime in the early to mid-1860s, and is attributed to Thomas Hicks – a portrait painter from that era who had painted Lincoln before. There were hardly any heroic, Presidential looking portraits of Lincoln at that time, which is one of the theories as to why this portrait might have been created. As to why Hicks would have felt the need to do a composite image – perhaps Lincoln was not able to sit for a portrait and requested the Calhoun pose be used as a basis for his, or maybe it was even created shortly after Lincoln’s death as a memorial portrait.
Personally, I find it quite interesting that the body of Calhoun was used for the Lincoln portrait. John Calhoun was quite vocal on states rights, and was an inspirational figure for the Southern secessionists who formed the Confederate States of America. (Most historians consider him to be an integral figure for the beginnings of the American Civil war even though he died a decade before it. ) He was also an outspoken proponent of slavery, referring to it as a “positive good” (basically everything Lincoln rallied against). Perhaps re-creating Calhoun’s portrait as Lincoln was a way of mocking Calhoun, or maybe it was an attempt to erase him from history altogether – literally covering up Calhoun’s old ideals with Lincoln’s new, progressive ones.
I haven’t been able to find much historical data on either the Calhoun or Lincoln portraits themselves, so if anyone out there has more info, please email me.
[mouse over to see the original portrait of John Calhoun]
Lincoln image: [Thomas Hicks]. “Abraham Lincoln.” New York: William Pate & Boston: L.A. Elliot & Co., circa 1865. 26 1/2 x 19 5/8. Engraving. Available for purchase through The Philadelphia Print Shop Ltd.
Calhoun image: [No known information].
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