JWB photo - yes or no?

[STS Lincolnite]

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/maill...-25/262835

I am always skeptical about unknown (or largely unknown) photos of Booth or Lincoln. I have seen so many spurious claims. That said, with a quick look (which is all I have had time to give this image having the link just sent to me via email), I think this one has a higher possibility of being legit. Nothing right of the bat told me it's not him.

Apparently, this was once in the collection of Josephine Cobb, formerly of the National Archives. It was she who zoomed in and found Lincoln seated on the platform at Gettysburg.

So friends, what do you think? Is this JWB or not?

[J. Beckert]

It's a hard no from me.

[RJNorton]

I second Joe.

[AussieMick]

The problem for me is that once I start leaning to say yes or no ... I cannot stop convincing myself in that direction.
I lean towards 'yes'. The man's right eye seems like other images of Booth ... it appears to me that it is looking in a slightly different direction to the left. Also the ear is on the side of the head ... LOL ... yes, as usual.
But there does seem a similarity with Booth's ear (when shown) in other images.

[Steve]

The man is not Booth. I'll admit he has some resemblance to Booth. But I compared the man's left ear to the shape of Booth's left ear in known photographs of Booth and the man's ears are shaped too differently to be the same person.

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Scott for sending this image so folks can see the "is it Booth" alongside JWB.

[AussieMick]

Hmm. The nose does seem totally different. Using my tablet I zoomed in and they are different to my old eyes. The chin is wrong too.

[Gene C]

If it is Booth, over the years his taste in clothes certainly improved.
I bet that first photo just had all the girls swooning - https://tenor.com/view/princess-prince-h...f-23765608

[Rob Wick]

To compare apples to apples you need to see a known picture of Booth without a mustache. To my knowledge, there is only one. It comes from the Booth Brothers picture which includes JWB, Junius Brutus Booth Jr., and Edwin. I cropped the other two out of this, and tried to blow it up as much as possible without losing too much distinction. Comparing the two, as much as is possible, leads me to believe that the picture in question is in no way Booth.



Best
Rob

[STS Lincolnite]

After finally finding time to take a close look at this (and actually post them), I will say my opinion is a confident: NO. I don’t believe the image in question is John Wilkes Booth.

My thoughts:

The nose: the bridge of the nose looks wrong to me. And more importantly the tip of the nose. Booth had a very distinctive nose that is inconsistent with what we see in the young man and very consistent amongst other confirmed Booth photos.

The chin: While both have somewhat prominent chins, Booth’s to me, looks more square and elongated side to side that does the other

The eyes: Booth has less “eyelid distance” between his eyes and eyebrows. This could be caused by someone actively raising their eyebrows, but that would cause a forehead wrinkling effect that does not look to be present in the image in question. Also, even more subjectively, in most all of the pictures I have seen of Booth, there seems to be a certain “intensity” of the look in his eyes that I don’t see in the image in question.

The mouth: As Rob mentioned, it is a bit hard to judge this one because most photos of Booth show him wearing a mustache. Although the image Rob posted of Booth without a mustache is from a different angle and is not especially close, he still seems to look a bit different around the mouth that the young man in the questionable image.

While there are some other reasons I don't think it's Booth, these are the ones that really stuck out for me.

I have enjoyed reading other people’s thoughts!