The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

BUSCH, Jordan Tchapp. Memorial Stevengraph of Abraham Lincoln. Basel, 1866. 9 x 5 in. (Some soiling, light marginal fraying.) -- JUDIS, J. Stevengraph of a beardless Abraham Lincoln. [Switzerland, 1866]. 8 3/4 x 4 in. (Folds, some soiling, light marginal fraying.)

The Stevengraph was an image woven from silk, often of multiple colors, to create vivid, near-three-dimensional images. The process was invented by an English weaver named Thomas Stevens in 1861, and the resulting images quickly became popular for use as bookmarks and home decorations. Following Lincoln's assassination, Stevengraphs depicting the martyred president became popular throughout Europe. Particularly noteworthy is an 1866 example by J. Judis, which uses a 1860 charcoal-on-paper drawing by Charles Alfred Barry, commissioned by prominent Massachusetts Republicans for use in campaign portraits. Writing of the session later, Barry would describe Lincoln's appearance as "Jacksonian in shape, and the angle of the jaw all that nature intended that it should be as a sign of power and determination."