Sarah Bush Johnston photograph

[Gene C]

(09-27-2017 01:38 PM)Darrell Wrote:  Oh no, Fido! That's almost like saying Sarah/Sally looked like a dog. Back under the horsehair sofa with you - bad boy!

Fido wouldn't say that, it was me - Gene C
I look a bit better after I have my morning pot of coffee.

[Joe Di Cola]

I am skeptical and wish there were some convincing provenance. I don't think the facial characteristics/features "match up."

[STS Lincolnite]

To my eye there are definitely some similar facial characteristics here. I am looking at the side by side images that Roger mentioned in a previous post. Hard to tell when we know the more traditional image has been reported to have been retouched.

The newer image is said to be an ambrotype dating from the 1860s (according to the second volume of Steers' Lincoln Slept Here). I am no expert but I understand that ambrotypes were introduced in the 1850s and were on the way out by the 1860s, being replaced by tintypes. Roger said he believed the more traditional image was given to Herndon in 1866. If these are images of the same person, and the date of the more recently discovered image is correct, she looks to have aged quite a lot in 6 years or less. Of course, depending on when the images were actually captured, her stepson had been assassinated and I suppose she could have suffered significant illness or other hardship that might account for the amount of apparent aging. It also makes me wonder if perhaps the newer image is from the 1850s not the 1860s.

We will probably never know for certain if the image is really Sarah Lincoln. Especially, as Joe and others said, without a more definitive provenance.