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Donna McCreary · 02-10-2015, 02:08 PM

(02-10-2015 12:45 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:
(02-10-2015 06:16 AM)RJNorton Wrote: Thank you for posting this link, Eva. I had the privilege of having a phone conversation with Grant Romer in the late 1990's. We discussed the Kaplan daguerreotype. Mr. Romer is an incredibly knowledgeable expert on the topic of early photography, and I believe he specializes in daguerreotypy.

Mr. Romer was the man I mentioned in a previous post (though I did not name him). He was the one that performed a chemical analysis on the daguerreotype and determined that it was produced in 1844 or later - which would seem to scientifically dispel the theory of it being produced in 1841. Mr. Kaplan has Mr. Romer's dissenting opinion up on his webpage.

(02-10-2015 09:29 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: Whatever matching anatomical measures Mr. Kaplan found, to me this gentlman doesn't resemble Abraham Lincoln. Also the gentleman looks neat as a pin - like someone to whom appealing appearance is an important matter.
If this was the first image of A. L., why didn't it survive in the Lincolns' family album? I doubt daguerreotypist took it to keep it himself. And if A. L. had invested in the luxury of having a daguerreotype taken while being quite poor and still paying his "national debt" he would sure have stored and preserved it properly, wouldn't he?

Eva, I had the same thought about why AL would not have had a copy. In Mr. Kaplan's theory, he gave it to Joshua Speed's mother as a gift.

(02-10-2015 12:37 PM)Donna McCreary Wrote: My opinion is that it resembles neither Lincoln nor Joshua Speed. Since it was suppose to have been taken at the Ormsby House, I can not help but wonder if it is a member of the Ormsby family. The point is not to confuse history, or to make false statments, but to just wonder who the gentleman was and his true connection (if any) to the photographer who stayed at the Ormsby home.

Donna, I am in agreement with you. To my eye it looks like neither. Just to be clear, Mr. Kaplan on his website does not offer any evidence that the daguerreotype was actually made in Louisville. Louisville is only a theory he sets forth per his website. He found a place where Lincoln was at a time when and where he believed a daguerreotype image of Lincoln could have been produced. He tried to make a connection at other geographical locations (Galena, IL for example) but found evidence to disprove those possibilities. Also, he bought the daguerreotype in New York...so there is no direct connection between Louisville and the place he bought it. This from Mr. Kaplan's website:
"In 1977 Albert Kaplan purchased the daguerreotype receipted as "Portrait of a Young Man" from an art gallery in New York."

There was no information about who the man was or even where the image was produced. For me, if it was purchased in New York and with no definitive evidence to the contrary, the most likely place the image would have been produced was in New York. If following the principles of Occam's razor (which I know is certainly not infallible), I find it highly unlikely that this image is one of Lincoln. Far too many assumptions have to be accepted as truth in order to draw the conclusion that this is Lincoln (not to mention that the result of Mr. Romer's scientific chemical analysis certainly makes the idea of an 1841 image unlikely - in Louisville or anywhere else). And then there is the most fundamental test, to my eye (and as others have felt), it just doesn't look like him - when an image from this angle and of this quality should if it was in fact Lincoln. I would need a whole lot more solid, corroborated, primary evidence for me to be convinced this is Lincoln (even then I would still have to overcome what my eyes tell me).

Thanks for all of the clairfications. So, this explains why the Ormsby family had a photographer in the home but no known photos of any family members exist. I agree -- this subject of this photo may always remain "unknown."