Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

George Peter Alexander Healy's 1887 Portrait of Abraham Lincoln was painted nearly two decades after Lincoln's assassination, from studies Healy had made during wartime sittings with the president. Healy was the most prolific American portrait painter of the nineteenth century, having painted Lincoln, Pope Pius IX, Daniel Webster, and hundreds of other figures. This version of the Lincoln portrait — painted for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington — represents Healy's effort to create a definitive record of the sixteenth president drawn from direct observation, making it one of the most historically significant Lincoln images in existence.

Healy's Lincoln is rendered with the careful realism he brought to all his portraits — the distinctive face modeled with attention to its specific sculptural character, the figure given the composed authority appropriate to presidential commemoration. His handling is competent and clear, prioritizing documentary fidelity over painterly ambition.