President Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White House

President Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White House

Robert Whitechurch

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Based on a drawing (2013.634.1), Schussele’s print documents Lincoln's chier advisors early in the Civil War. Pictured from left to right are Edward Bates (Attorney General), Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy), Montgomery Blair (Postmaster General), William Henry Seward (Secretary of State), Salmon Portland Chase (Secretary of the Treasury), the President, General Winfield Scott (Chief of the Army), Caleb Blood Smith (Secretary of the Interior), and Simon Cameron (Secretary of War). The accurate furnishings and view through the window of an unfinished Washington Monument lend a sense of immediacy, with the image intended to reassure viewers that Lincoln, regarded by many as an ill-prepared Westerner, was surrounded by experienced men. Since the engraving lacks a publication line, it may never have been issued, perhaps because Scott retired and Cameron had been replaced by February 1862.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

President Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White HousePresident Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White HousePresident Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White HousePresident Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White HousePresident Lincoln and His Cabinet, with Lt. General Scott, in the Council Chamber at the White House

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.