The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

Height 32 1/2 in. Inscribed on rear, "T.D. Jones Sculptor 1861".

Prior to Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, the sculptor Thomas Dow Jones was approached by leading Republicans in Cincinnati, Ohio, to create a portrait bust of the incoming president. He arrived at Lincoln's Springfield home on Christmas Day 1860 with letters of introduction in hand from Ohio Governor (and Lincoln's future Secretary of the Treasury) Salmon P. Chase and Thomas Ewing. For an hour each day, Lincoln would sit for Jones at the St. Nicholas Hotel while, at the sculptor's encouragement, working on official correspondence to keep him distracted from developments in the South that were causing "a deep-seated melancholy...to take possession of his soul..." Of the resulting bust, Lincoln said, "I think it looks very much like the critter."

The resulting sculpture is unique for being the first depiction of Abraham Lincoln with a beard and the last created before Lincoln left Springfield. The following year, Jones created a painted plaster version, which today resides in the Indiana Statehouse, and another marble version was created as part of the Lincoln Vicksburg Monument, now in the Ohio Statehouse.