Seed Pearl Necklace and Bracelets

[Susan Higginbotham]

(05-29-2019 12:56 PM)James Wrote:  

(05-29-2019 09:03 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Frank Leslie's (March 23, 1861) mentions her wearing "pearl ornaments." If you search for photographs of Mary wearing the set, you'll notice she wears it with low-necked evening dresses--nothing remotely like the lady in the photograph is wearing.

Illustrations of the first inaugural ball show the fashionable ladies in low-necked evening dresses. Do you think Mary would have been caught dead at such an occasion in a high-necked day dress?

No, Susan, she wouldn't have.
Is the image you mention a formal photograph?
Would Mary be "caught dead" wearing a "day dress" while sitting for a formal photograph with her husband?
Would Mary have worn a deeply bordered Point D'Alencon lace collar with a day dress?
Would Mary have worn a deeply bordered Point D'Alencon lace collar with a low necked ball gown?
Is there one shred of doubt that Mary wore a deeply bordered Point D'Alencon lace collar to the inaugural ball?
Would Mary have worn a seed pearl necklace perched atop the lace collar to the inaugural ball?
Lastly, was there any mention in the Frank Leslie's article you referenced to a Christmas Tree?

What image are you asking about? Frank Leslie's contains illustrations, not photographs. Newsprint publications didn't have the technology to reproduce photographs at that time, although some of of Leslie's illustrations are copied from photographs.

Mary did wear day dresses for some photographs, but there is no evidence of her ever posing with her husband. "Family photos" of the Lincolns were composites of other images. If there was a photograph taken of the Lincolns together while they were in Washington, why wouldn't it have been reproduced and sold, as were individual photographs of Mary and Lincoln?

As for the Christmas tree, that seems unlikely in a March publication. Perhaps you're thinking of the illustration of Victoria and Albert posing with a tabletop Christmas tree, an illustration that was subsequently Americanized, but I'm at a loss to see what that has to do with the Lincolns.

As I believe someone else said, if you're advocating for the daguerreotype (which was losing popularity by 1861 in favor of the ambrotype) as being one of the Lincolns, it's your job to do the research to support it. It would help, of course, if either the man or the woman actually resembled Abraham or Mary.