HAY FAMILY COPY-ONE OF TWO DOCUMENTED 19TH CENTURY CASTINGS. Plaster life mask, PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION HERE. Twice in his life, Abraham Lincoln sat for a casting of his face. During the 1860 presidential campaign Leonard Volk famously cast Lincoln's face and hands. In February of 1865, just before his 56th birthday and two months before his assassination, Lincoln sat for well-known Washington sculptor Clark Mills The two artists used different techniques to create their casts. Volk left the plaster on for an hour so that he could pull it off in one piece, a process Lincoln found extremely unpleasant; Mills spread the plaster thinly over the face and allowed it to set for only 15 minutes, letting the sitter break the mask into pieces by the movement of his face. The pieces were collected in a towel and recombined later. Historians and scholars have always marveled at the difference between the two masks, and the dramatic aging effect four years of war had on Lincoln's visage. There are at least two early plaster castings of the Mills mask: a 1952 publication by the Smithsonian Institution, "An Anthropologist Looks at Lincoln" by T.D. Stewart, mentions a plaster mask given by Clark Mills' son, Theodore A. Mills, to the National Museum (the Smithsonian) in 1889, and another copy given by the sons of Mills to Colonel John Hay in 1886. Col. Hay, who had been one of Lincoln's private secretaries and went on to be McKinley's Secretary of State, also received a bronze casting of the Mills mask from the sculptor's sons. At his death John Hay left the bronze cast to his son Clarence and the plaster mask to his daughter, Mrs. Alice Hay Wadsworth Boyd. After her death, her youngest son, Reverdy Wadsworth, placed the mask and other property with the Hartford House auction company in Geneseo, New York. The mask was purchased at auction on November 18, 1960 by Mr. Robert Palmiter, who consigned it for sale to Harry Shaw Newman's The Old Print Shop in New York City. The mask appeared in Newman's February 1964 catalog (Vol. XXIII, No. 6), which is where Lloyd Ostendorf first learned of its existence. Lloyd saw the mask in person in 1964, and again in 1965, but was not able to buy it before it was sold to Springfield, IL dealer King V. Hostick. Finally, in 1969, Hostick sold the mask to Lloyd, allowing him to pay in installments. The Hay plaster mask is striking in its distinctive detail of every wrinkle and pore of Lincoln's face. A 1961 letter from the Curator of the Smithsonian's Department of Civil History, Richard H. Howland, compares the present copy with the National Museum's cast, declaring this copy to be finer. Lloyd Ostendorf and other Lincoln scholars surmised that this casting may have preceded the National Museum casting, given its greater detail, although there is no way to definitively assign preference in casting. Lloyd Ostendorf rightly considered this piece as one of the jewels of his collection. We are very pleased to be able to offer the Clark Mills plaster casting of the Lincoln life mask at auction for only the second time in its nearly 140-year history. See illustration.
HAY FAMILY COPY-ONE OF TWO DOCUMENTED 19TH CENTURY CASTINGS. Plaster life mask, PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION HERE. Twice in his life, Abraham Lincoln sat for a casting of his face. During the 1860 presidential campaign Leonard Volk famously cast Lincoln's face and hands. In February of 1865, just before his 56th birthday and two months before his assassination, Lincoln sat for well-known Washington sculptor Clark Mills The two artists used different techniques to create their casts. Volk left the plaster on for an hour so that he could pull it off in one piece, a process Lincoln found extremely unpleasant; Mills spread the plaster thinly over the face and allowed it to set for only 15 minutes, letting the sitter break the mask into pieces by the movement of his face. The pieces were collected in a towel and recombined later. Historians and scholars have always marveled at the difference between the two masks, and the dramatic aging effect four years of war had on Lincoln's visage. There are at least two early plaster castings of the Mills mask: a 1952 publication by the Smithsonian Institution, "An Anthropologist Looks at Lincoln" by T.D. Stewart, mentions a plaster mask given by Clark Mills' son, Theodore A. Mills, to the National Museum (the Smithsonian) in 1889, and another copy given by the sons of Mills to Colonel John Hay in 1886. Col. Hay, who had been one of Lincoln's private secretaries and went on to be McKinley's Secretary of State, also received a bronze casting of the Mills mask from the sculptor's sons. At his death John Hay left the bronze cast to his son Clarence and the plaster mask to his daughter, Mrs. Alice Hay Wadsworth Boyd. After her death, her youngest son, Reverdy Wadsworth, placed the mask and other property with the Hartford House auction company in Geneseo, New York. The mask was purchased at auction on November 18, 1960 by Mr. Robert Palmiter, who consigned it for sale to Harry Shaw Newman's The Old Print Shop in New York City. The mask appeared in Newman's February 1964 catalog (Vol. XXIII, No. 6), which is where Lloyd Ostendorf first learned of its existence. Lloyd saw the mask in person in 1964, and again in 1965, but was not able to buy it before it was sold to Springfield, IL dealer King V. Hostick. Finally, in 1969, Hostick sold the mask to Lloyd, allowing him to pay in installments. The Hay plaster mask is striking in its distinctive detail of every wrinkle and pore of Lincoln's face. A 1961 letter from the Curator of the Smithsonian's Department of Civil History, Richard H. Howland, compares the present copy with the National Museum's cast, declaring this copy to be finer. Lloyd Ostendorf and other Lincoln scholars surmised that this casting may have preceded the National Museum casting, given its greater detail, although there is no way to definitively assign preference in casting. Lloyd Ostendorf rightly considered this piece as one of the jewels of his collection. We are very pleased to be able to offer the Clark Mills plaster casting of the Lincoln life mask at auction for only the second time in its nearly 140-year history. See illustration.
.jpg?w=400 "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
