Abraham Lincoln

Life Mask & Hands, 1886

This artwork was the creation of two artists: Leonard Wells Volk and Augustus Saint Gaudens. Volk, a new York stonecutter, studied sculpting in St. Louis and later in Rome. Upon his return from Rome, Volk established a studio in Chicago, where he helped to found the Chicago Academy of Design and became a leader in the city's art community.

Volk first met Lincoln in 1858 during Lincoln's historic debates with Stephen A. Douglas, who was a cousin of Volk's wife. Volk later remembered the "tall gaunt figure with immense strides"...the "broadest and pleasantest smile," rugged face, "beaming, dark, dull eyes," and large hands, which "grasp(ed) my hand...like a vice-grip." He wrote, "This was the first good view I had of the 'coming man,' though I had seen him at a distance, and passed him on the sidewalk in Chicago a few days before." At that time, Lincoln agreed to sit one day for Volk so he could create a bust, but nearly two years would pass before they met again.

Upon hearing that Lincoln had returned to Chicago to try a case in April, 1860, Volk reminded him of his offer, and Lincoln began a week of daily sittings for the artist. Volk prepared to make a cast of Lincoln's face: Volk later described the session at which the mask was taken: "...He sat naturally in the chair when I made the cast, and saw every move I made in a mirror opposite, as I put the plaster on without interference with his eyesight or his free breathing through the nostrils. It was about an hour before the mold was ready to be removed, and being all in one piece, with both ears perfectly taken, it clung pretty hard, as the cheekbones were higher than the jaws at the lobe of the ear. He [Lincoln] bent his head low and took hold of the mold, and gradually worked it off without breaking or injury; it hurt a little, as a few hairs of the tender temples pulled out with the plaster and made his eyes water..."

Two months later Lincoln received the nomination for President of the United States, and Volk determined to make a full-length statue of the statesman. Volk therefore traveled to Springfield, Illinois to undertake the casting of Lincoln's hands. Upon asking his subject to hold a piece of wood in one hand, Lincoln began "whittling off the end of a piece of a broom handle," explaining, "I thought I would like to have it nice" Volk remembered Lincoln's "right hand appeared swollen as compared with the left, on account of the excessive hand-shaking the evening before" [the night of his nomination as Presidential candidate]. This difference is noticeable in the castings of his hands.

Volk saved these plaster casts, (which, he claimed, crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times) before giving them to his son, Douglas. Douglas Volk, also an artist, passed the casts on to fellow art student Wyatt Eaton. During the winter of 1885-1886, Richard Watson Gilder saw the casts in Eaton's studio and immediately grasped their significance. Gilder and his friend, Augustus Saint Gaudens, initiated a fund-drive to raise money to purchase the historic casts for the National Museum, now the Smithsonian Institution. A copy in plaster sold for fifty dollars, and bronze copies cost subscribers eighty-five dollars.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens' art training began in New York and culminated at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. A leading 19th century American sculptor, he led the movement to memorialize Civil War heroes in bronze statuary. He became advisor to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Saint-Gaudens supervised the casting of the bronze copies of Lincoln's head and hands, which bear identifying inscriptions.

Thirty-three individuals contributed to the subscription, among them John J. Glessner. Depending upon the amount contributed, subscribers received either a bronze or plaster copy made from the original casts with his name inserted in the inscription. Volk's original casts were then purchased and presented to the Smithsonian Institution, where they reside (in the Museum of American History) today. John Glessner placed his bronze casts of Lincoln in his library, where they remained for 50 years, and where they are displayed today.