A life-size Lincoln is heading for the Smithsonian
The story behind one of the most famous Lincoln portraits you've never heard of
On President’s Day, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is unveiling a rarity: a life-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln. On loan from a collection in New Jersey, it’s one of only three known portraits to capture Lincoln’s lanky six-foot-four-inch frame and one of only a few paintings Lincoln is believed to have sat for during his presidency.
But a boilerplate description doesn’t capture the true weirdness of the so-called Travers portrait, which encompasses a murky origin story, a decade-long debate in Congress, and even the Rockefellers. For the better part of a century, it passed from owner to owner, its provenance unclear, its gifted creator often misidentified.
“SORT OF A MILD CRANK”
As the story was later told, a Dutch-German artist named Willem Frederik Karel Travers arrived in New York in 1864 to enlist in the Union Army. Son of a veteran of Waterloo, he wanted to take part in the American war….but at 38 and in poor health, he was deemed unfit to serve.
Disappointed, Travers soon resolved to go to Washington and see if he could convince President Lincoln to sit for a portrait. “Those to whom he spoke on the subject, however, considered him sort of a mild crank,” said an 1888 Senate report, “and gave him no encouragement.”
Then one day, Travers saw Lincoln walking along the street and intercepted him. He explained that he had been rejected from fighting but still wished to make a mark in the great struggle, and “believed he could paint a picture of the President which would forever identify him with the issues of the day.”
Lincoln was said to be “touched” by the artist’s enthusiasm and agreed to a sitting. Travers later spent an hour sketching Lincoln at the White House, during which Lincoln “told the artist a number of his characteristic and droll stories,” the report continued. He had several other sittings with Lincoln before returning to Germany in 1865.
How accurate is this tale? Hard to say. WFK Travers isn’t mentioned in Lincoln’s papers or in the authoritative day-by-day account of his life. There’s no mention of him in the Washington newspapers for 1864 or 1865, and no record of his attempted enlistment. The only sign of his presence in the US during this time was a notation in New York Times, which listed him among the passengers on the Liverpool-bound steamship Edna on August 26, 1865.
This isn’t to say the story is false, just that it lacks some of the evidence we might otherwise expect to see. Lincoln didn’t sit for many artists during his presidency, and other known incidences are fairly well documented. Travers himself is believed to have died in 1869. By the late 1880s, it was at best a second-hand tale.
“REMARKABLY LIFE-LIKE”
The artist completed the portrait in his Frankfort-am-Main studio in 1866 and it was purchased by American diplomat Franklin Webster shortly thereafter. In 1876, the painting was shipped to the United States for display at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where it was seen by tens of thousands of people – including many who had known Lincoln in life – and it gained a reputation as an astonishingly accurate portrayal of the martyred president. One story that later circulated was that his widow, Mary Todd Lincoln, was so struck by the painting that she fainted and had to be carried out of the hall. (Mrs. Lincoln did tour the exhibition in October 1876, but there’s no record of her fainting at this or any other exhibit.)
It’s unclear what happened to the portrait after Philadelphia, and over a decade passed before it was back in the news.
Senator Daniel W. Voorhees, who had known Lincoln since the 1840s, was so taken by the portrait that he wanted Congress to buy it for display in the Capitol. As a member of the Senate’s Library Committee, he collected as much information as possible on its history – although he somehow never got the name of the artist correct. In the Congressional records, WFK Travers forever became “George WF Travis.” By 1888, he was able to push forward a bill proposing to purchase the piece for $15,000, an amount equivalent to over $500,000 in modern dollars.
That eye-popping figure came up in debate after debate over the next eight years. In October 1888, for example, Senator John Sherman of Ohio told Voorhees he knew about art, and a full-length portrait by an “eminent American artist” would cost between $2,500 and $5,000. “I know of know of no painter in this country who pretends to charge any such price as $15,000.”
Voorhees kept up the fight until declining health forced him to leave Congress in 1896. The Travers painting was eventually purchased by Percy A. Rockefeller, the nephew of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. A prolific collector, he reportedly paid $25,000 for the portrait and kept it in his personal collection until his death in 1934.
For the next several years, a series of dealers tried to unload the piece for a Depression-era price of $3,000. There were no takers. Finally, Percy’s sister Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge donated it to her own Hartley Dodge Foundation in Madison, New Jersey, where it has lived for the last 80 years.
The foundation is loaning the portrait to the Smithsonian for the next five years, allowing the public to enjoy this unique view of Lincoln. If you happen to be in Washington any time between February 10 and, say, 2027, stop by the National Portrait Gallery at 8th & G Streets NW and see it for yourself!
Click here to view the Smithsonian’s Facebook reel on the Travers painting
Coming next week: The Lincolns of….Massachusetts?