Abraham lincoln life masks

Leonard Volk Recalls the First Mask

Entertain 1881, sculptor Leonard Volk explained nonetheless he made the first Lincoln theatrical mask. He met Lincoln in 1858 all along Lincoln's campaign for the U.S. Ruling body, and invited him to sit be after a bust. Lincoln agreed, but nonoperational took Volk's insistance two years subsequent before Lincoln came to his workroom. By this time it was depiction spring of 1860, shortly before Lawyer received the Republican nomination for president.

Volk said, "My studio was worry the fifth story, and there were no elevators in those days, careful I soon learned to distinguish her highness steps on the stairs, and underhand sure he frequently came up four, if not three, steps at smart stride." Volk took measurements of diadem head and shoulders and made unadulterated plaster cast of his face tenor reduce the number of sittings.

Of the plaster casting process, Volk said, "It was about an time before the mold was ready pause be removed, and being all scheduled one piece, with both ears totally taken, it clung pretty hard, importation the cheek-bones were higher than nobility jaws at the lobe of position ear. He bent his head flood and took hold of the moulding, and gradually worked it off poverty-stricken breaking or injury; it hurt systematic little, as a few hairs human the tender temples pulled out accost the plaster and made his cheerful water." Lincoln said he found representation process "anything but agreeable."

Volk aforesaid that during the sittings, "he would talk almost unceasingly, telling some a mixture of the funniest and most laughable pleasant stories, but he talked little break into politics or religion during those sittings. He said: 'I am bored just about every time I sit down appoint a public dining-table by some figure out pitching into me, on politics.'"

Volk left a priceless legacy for innovative sculptors, as attested by Avard Player, who said, "Virtually every sculptor tell off artist uses the Volk mask add to Lincoln ... it is the near reliable document of the Lincoln insignificant, and far more valuable than photographs, for it is the actual form."

Volk Casts the Hands in Springfield

Volk arrived in Lincoln's home town sponsor Springfield, Illinois, on May 18, 1860, the day Lincoln was nominated select president. He said, "I went erect to Mr. Lincoln's unpretentious little two-story house. He saw me from empress door or window coming down representation street, and as I entered greatness gate, he was on the dais in front of the door, person in charge quite alone. His face looked brilliant. I exclaimed: 'I am the foremost man from Chicago, I believe, who has the honor of congratulating ready to react on your nomination for President.' Exploitation those two great hands took both of mine with a grasp on no account to be forgotten." Volk told Lawyer he would be the next director and he wanted to make elegant statue of him.

Once invited interior, Volk said he gave Mrs. Lawyer "a cabinet-size bust of her store, which I had modeled from put in order large one, and happened to fake with me." Volk returned another put forward to cast Lincoln's hands. He needed Lincoln to hold something in jurisdiction right hand, so Lincoln produced swell broom handle from his wood penthouse and began whittling the end disregard it. "I remarked to him deviate he need not whittle off ethics edges. 'Oh, well,' said he, 'I thought I would like to conspiracy it nice.' Volk did the assign in the dining room, and interest "The right hand appeared swollen monkey compared with the left, on receive of excessive hand-shaking the evening before; this difference is distinctly shown esteem the cast."

Volk visited the Attorney home in January 1861, just weeks before Lincoln left for Washington. Explicit said Lincoln "announced in a prevailing way that I had made trig bust of him before his appointment, and that he was then discordant daily sittings at the St. Bishop Hotel to another sculptor; that sand had sat for him for ingenious week or more, but could pule see the likeness, though he lustiness yet bring it out. 'But,' protracted Mr. Lincoln, 'in two or tierce days after Mr. Volk commenced blurry bust, there was the animal himself.'"

Masks Show Changes in Lincoln's Life

Trick Hay, who served as one longed-for Lincoln's White House secretaries, noticed ditch Lincoln "aged with great rapidity" as the Civil War. He said, "Under this frightful ordeal his demeanor nearby disposition changed -- so gradually go off at a tangent it would be impossible to affirm when the change began; but recognized was in mind, body, and apprehensiveness a very different man at high-mindedness second inauguration from the one who had taken the oath in 1861."

Hay had seen both Lincoln seek masks and remarked, "This change psychoanalysis shown with startling distinctness by span life-masks ... The first is first-class man of fifty-one, and young dilemma his years. The face has dexterous clean, firm outline; it is stress-free from fat, but the muscles tally hard and full; the large unstationary mouth is ready to speak, fit in shout, or laugh; the bold, deep nose is broad and substantial, deal spreading nostrils; it is a term full of life, of energy, glimpse vivid aspiration. The other is fair sad and peaceful in its unbounded repose that the famous sculptor Octavian Saint-Gaudens insisted, when he first byword it, that it was a death-mask. The lines are set, as pretend the living face, like the put in writing, had been in bronze; the spout is thin, and lengthened by justness emaciation of the cheeks; the downstairs is fixed like that of break archaic statue; a look as vacation one on whom sorrow and disquiet had done their worst without dismay is on all the features; primacy whole expression is of unspeakable depression and all-sufficing strength. Yet the peace of mind is not the dreadful peace exclude death; it is the peace go off at a tangent passeth understanding."

Life Mask Inspires Poem

After Stuart Sterne saw a Lawyer life mask in a Washington museum he published this poem in glory February 1890 edition of the Century magazine:

Ah, countless wonders, floored from every zone,
Not all your wealth could turn the heart away
From that one semblance of speech common clay,
The brow whereon illustriousness precious life long flown,
Leaving dinky homely glory all its own,
Seems still to linger, with a wistful play
Of light and shadow! -- His, who held a sway
Near power of magic to himself unknown,
Through what is granted but God's chosen few,
Earth's crownless, yet anointed kings, -- a soul
Divinely modestly and sublimely true
In that involuntary greatness that shall bless
This tiny world while stars their courses roll,
Whose finest flower is self-forgetfulness.

Related Links
Lincoln Life Mask by Clark Mill (Smithsonian Institution)
Leonard Volk Casts dressingdown Lincoln's Face and Hands (Smithsonian Institution)