W. A. Evans: "Mrs. Abraham Lincoln"

[Donna McCreary]

Katherine Helm actually painted six (and maybe seven) portraits of Mary Lincoln. Eva, the one you mentioned hangs in a private residence in Kentucky. Take a close look at the hair, and you see that in the "younger" one, Mary's hair is parted slightly different. In her writings about the portrait, Katherine said that she used many sources for inspiration. She had written discriptions of Mary and her gowns from people who attended White House receptions. She had access to any photograph of Mary that was owned by Robert Lincoln - including the 1846 Shepherd daguerreotype. What Katherine actually painted was not a copy of any of the photographic images, but a combination of all with a lot of artistic imagination thrown in.