Winkin' and Blinkin'

[STS Lincolnite]

Betty, this is neat. Thanks for posting.

A few thoughts on that photo. With all do respect to Mr. Ostendorf, I have always been skeptical of the date of February 1865 for the photo with the mod hairdo. Is this date based only on the claim that he may have been sporting this hairdo to try and keep his hair out of the plaster when a life mask was created? I believe Mills made the life mask on February 11, 1865.

I am attaching 3 cropped photographs in a side by side format. First is a photo from the February 5, 1865 Gardner session. Next is the alleged February 1865 photo. Third is the March 6, 1865 Warren photo. The first and the third have pretty much established, accepted dates supported by some form of corroboration.

If Lincoln's hairdo is related to the life mask, that would presumably make the second photo after February 5 but before March 6 seeing as how the life mask was made on February 11 from what I have read. The side by side photo that I made has them in what would be sequential order if the February 1865 designation for the second photo is correct.

When I look at them that order, they don't seem to fit. The first and the third photos have definite similarities that aren't consistent with the second.

In the first photo his hair is sort of messy and longish. The same in the third photo. Very different in the second photo.

In the first photo his face very drawn. In the third photo he looks better but still drawn. In the second photo, his face looks more full and facial lines less apparent.

In the first photo, he has sort of partial whiskers - growing on his chin with no whiskers on his cheek between sideburns and chin (what Lincoln actor Fritz Kein calls his "1865 whiskers"). The same is true in the third photo. In the second photo he has whiskers from sideburns across his cheeks to his chin.

I know the photo angles are different, but it doesn't seem plausible to my admittedly untrained eyes that Lincoln would appear one way on February 5, look markedly different about 6 days later, then again very similar to what he looked like February 5 in a photo taken March 6.

What do you all think?