Mary Lincoln Extra Credit Questions

[RJNorton]

Hi Anita. I am not getting what you are asking. Are you saying Mary asked another person to pose as her husband and then asked an artist to paint that person?

[Anita]

Roger, I hope this helps. Clarification: Lincoln wasn't available so Mary sent someone who dressed in Lincoln's clothes and posed for the artist.

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Anita. Now I understand. I need to think about this one!!

[Anita]

Roger I can smell the wood burning out in CA! Keep thinking.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Wild guesses - Leonard Swett resembled A. L. and before the "insanity affair" was considered a friend by Mary, maybe he was the model?

As for the painter - G. P. A. Healy painted at least one portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Maybe he?

[Anita]

Great wild guesses Eva but it wasn't Leonard Swett or Healy.

Here's a hint. Think White House.

[L Verge]

This is somewhat complicated, but does this site contain the answer? http://www.publicartboston.com/content/m...neuil-hall

[Anita]

Yes indeed Laurie! Good detective work. Your link is fascinating. I didn't see that one.


“Pendel looked very much like Lincoln and this fact must have given the Chief Executive much amusement, especially when the doorkeeper was mistaken for the President,” wrote Lincoln scholar Louis A Warren. “Governor Andrews of Massachusetts wrote a letter to Mrs. Lincoln asking her to urge William Morris Hunt, the famous Boston artist, to make a portrait of the President. Mrs. Lincoln later sent Pendel on to Boston where he posed for the artist in Lincoln’s clothes, as the portrait was to be one of full length.”2
http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/insi...ubjectID=2

   
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by the Boston artist William Morris Hunt, oil on panel. The full-length portrait was a study for a later painting of Lincoln by Hunt which was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1872. The portrait was painted soon after the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. The work portrays Lincoln as a sad-faced martyr to the Union cause, which was supported by William Morris Hunt and his brothers.
Date 1865 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:..._Hunt.jpeg

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Here's Thomas Frances Pendel. He does resemble Lincoln.

   


http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/39320

[L Verge]

Yes indeed Laurie! Good detective work. Your link is fascinating. I didn't see that one.


“Pendel looked very much like Lincoln and this fact must have given the Chief Executive much amusement, especially when the doorkeeper was mistaken for the President,” wrote Lincoln scholar Louis A Warren. “Governor Andrews of Massachusetts wrote a letter to Mrs. Lincoln asking her to urge William Morris Hunt, the famous Boston artist, to make a portrait of the President. Mrs. Lincoln later sent Pendel on to Boston where he posed for the artist in Lincoln’s clothes, as the portrait was to be one of full length.”2
http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/insi...ubjectID=2


Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by the Boston artist William Morris Hunt, oil on panel. The full-length portrait was a study for a later painting of Lincoln by Hunt which was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1872. The portrait was painted soon after the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. The work portrays Lincoln as a sad-faced martyr to the Union cause, which was supported by William Morris Hunt and his brothers.
Date 1865 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:..._Hunt.jpeg

---

Here's Thomas Frances Pendel. He does resemble Lincoln.




http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/39320

Thanks for posting the photo of Pendel because I was doubting the reference in the source that I read to Pendel being the "Black Doorkeeper at the White House." Pendel is mentioned in so many references to the assassination, but I never remember any noting of his race.

[Eva Elisabeth]

My memory is vague, but wasn't Tom Pendel a mulatto in Spielberg's movie?

[L Verge]

My memory is vague, but wasn't Tom Pendel a mulatto in Spielberg's movie?

If he testified at the trial, race was usually noted.

[Anita]

   

This is the actor who played Tom Pendel in Steven Spielberg"s film "Lincoln".
His name is Ford Flannagan.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/fullcredits/

[RJNorton]

In the twilight of her life Mary occasionally had visitors to her room at the Edwards' home in Springfield. Sometimes she asked these visitors if they could hear something when they were in her room. What was it that she asked?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Her husband's voice?

[RJNorton]

Excellent, Eva! That is correct. Apparently she slept on one side of the bed leaving space for her husband, and she asked visitors if they could hear his voice when they were in her room.

You win very best wishes for good late-summer weather in Germany!