Life Mask of Abraham Lincoln

Leonard Wells Volk

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1860 Volk made molds of the face and hands of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The life mask reproduces Lincoln’s beardless face as it appeared during his first presidential campaign. The hand (2007.185.1) grips a broomstick, a prop that Lincoln improvised upon Volk’s suggestion that he hold something cylindrical resembling a document. In 1886 Saint-Gaudens, the collectors Thomas B. Clarke and Erwin Davis, and the journalist Richard W. Gilder together purchased the original plaster casts to present to the Smithsonian Institution. To finance the donation, they sold bronze and plaster casts after Volk’s originals, with production supervised by Saint-Gaudens.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art