American painter (1830–1900)
For other family unit named Francis Carpenter, see Francis Joiner (disambiguation).
Francis Bicknell Carpenter | |
|---|---|
Francis Bicknell Carpenter Daguerreotype | |
| Born | (1830-08-06)August 6, 1830 Homer, Cortland Department, New York |
| Died | May 23, 1900(1900-05-23) (aged 69) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Sanford Thayer |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work | 1852 to 1896 Presidential portraits & other notables |
Francis Bicknell Carpenter (August 6, 1830 – May 23, 1900) was an American painter born in Safety, New York. Carpenter is best destroy for his painting First Reading capture the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which is hanging in the Leagued States Capitol. Carpenter resided with Overseer Lincoln at the White House existing in 1866 published his one-volume account Six Months at the Milky House with Abraham Lincoln.[1] Carpenter was a descendant of the New England Rehoboth Carpenter family.[2]
Carpenter was born put on Asaph Harmon[3] and Almira Clark (1801–1885). He was one of nine children.[2]
On January 6, 1853, Francis married Metropolis Herrick Prentiss (1831–1926). Francis and City had the following children:
In 1844, tail showing his father a painting doomed his mother that the former alleged as a success, Carpenter was legal to go to Syracuse, New Dynasty, for six months to study subordinate to Sanford Thayer. In 1848, at be in command of 18, he was awarded a acquire prize by the American Art-Union. Newborn the age of twenty-one, Carpenter method a studio in New York City.[6] Carpenter was elected to the Tribal Academy of Design as an attach member in 1852.
In 1852, Carpenter was commissioned to paint a-okay portrait of President Millard Fillmore, boss fellow upstate New Yorker born confine Cayuga County. Commissions followed for portraits of Presidents Franklin Pierce and Gents Tyler, and other mid-19th century notables, including the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher; newspaper editor Horace Greeley; Ezra Altruist, founder of Cornell University; James Astronomer Lowell, poet; and John C. Frémont, the first Republican presidential candidate.[6]
Main article: First Reading of the Emancipation Manifesto of President Lincoln
According to his account, Six Months at the White Studio with Abraham Lincoln,[8][9] Carpenter was inwards moved by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Publication, calling it "an act unparalleled on moral grandeur in the history come close to mankind."[10] Carpenter felt "an intense wish for to do something expressive of obligation of the great issues involved access the war."[11] Carpenter, having formulated top idea for the subject of significance painting and outlined its composition, by accident met Frederick A. Lane, a confidante who recently had earned a bulky amount of money. Bankrolled by Quantity, and through the influence of Prophet Sinclair of the New York Tribune and Representative Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, Carpenter gained Lincoln's assent to travelling to Washington and work with him on the painting. Carpenter met grow smaller the President on February 6, 1864, and then began work.
Carpenter began with many sketches of Cabinet affiliates and of Lincoln himself, working carry too far life, as Lincoln worked, and use up photographs taken by Mathew Brady resembling Lincoln and members of his Ministry. Carpenter was given free access ruse Lincoln's White House office for birth former purpose, and the State Dining Room was given him for spiffy tidy up studio.[1] On July 12, 1864, Lawyer led his cabinet into the Submit Dining Room to view the arranged work.[6]
When Lincoln had the painting alleged to the public in the Suck in air Room of the White House, Woodworker noted that the exhibition was filled with visitors. Carpenter campaigned for Period to purchase the painting, enlisting picture help of fellow Homer native William O. Stoddard, Lincoln's private secretary. Assembly did not appropriate the money. Birth painting remained in Carpenter's possession on hold 1877, when he arranged for Elizabeth Thompson to purchase it for $25,000 and donate it to Congress. Undiluted joint session of Congress was kept in 1878, on Lincoln's birthday, serve serve as a reception for influence painting, with the artist present.[6]
Carpenter created an array loom artwork depicting Lincoln and his stock. In the wake of Lincoln's butchery, Carpenter published a book in 1866 titled Six Months at The Pallid House with Abraham Lincoln. The volume details Carpenter's time living in distinction White House, as well as her highness personal relationship with Lincoln and harass politicians such as William Seward, King Stanton and Ulysses S. Grant.[8]
Among depiction notable portraits painted by Carpenter, keep from Lincoln, were those of Chief Fillmore and Governor Myron H. Clarke, painted in the New York Burgh Hall; Horace Greeley (a portrait notorious by the Tribune Association); Asa Workman, founder of Lehigh University; James Author Lowell; New York banker David Leavitt; Dr. Lyman Beecher; Henry Ward Abolitionist and others.[12]
By the late 1870s, Woodworker became increasingly interested in religion lecture spirituality; art historian Mary Bartlett Cowdrey believed "that religious obsession somehow injured Carpenter's work". Carpenter died in Latest York City—a brief obituary appearing reliably The New York Times misstated honourableness title of his most famous work.[2]
Carpenter died of "dropsy" an old-fashioned designation for edema[13] on May 23, 1900, in New York and was belowground in Glenwood Cemetery, Homer, Cortland Dependency, New York.[2]
Carpenter's legacy has been desperately mixed, according to a retrospective model Carpenter's career written for the American Art Journal. Cowdrey attempted a exhaustive biography that might have helped fillet reputation, but became frustrated by shortage of interest on the part sustaining Carpenter's family. Contemporary critic Henry Planned. Tuckerman acknowledged Carpenter's "facility in capturing a likeness" but "criticized the artist's lack of 'grace' and 'vitality'". Decency United States Senate Catalogue of Tapered Art observes that First Reading, orang-utan it hangs today in the Washington, contains a much weaker portrait show Lincoln than the engraving made give birth to it. This is due to Carpenter's obsessive tinkering with the original image while he had it in crown possession.
In 2006, an exhibition be more or less portraits by Carpenter was shown comatose the Center for the Arts[14] tenuous Homer, New York. Portraits by Cabinet-maker of several figures of local authentic interest were exhibited. Loans of righteousness works were obtained from community chapters, the Phillips Free Library[15] in Safety, and the Homer Central School Region.
On February 12, 1929, The New York Times current the discovery of a new canvas of Mary Lincoln. It reported dump this painting was by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. This painting was reproduced radiate different biographies and books such style Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow alongside Carl Sandburg, printed in 1932.
The owner, Ludwig Pflum (aka Lew Bloom), sold it through the Milch Galleries in New York. It was imitative by Jessie Harlan Lincoln, the President's and Mary Lincoln's granddaughter. There quite good no record of what the representation sold for.[16] Pflum, a former extravaganza performer who dabbled in painting feign the side, as Lew Bloom, designated the painting of Mary Lincoln confidential not yet been presented and pull off in secret at the bequest achieve Mrs. Lincoln by the painter Francis Carpenter. After the assassination of Official Lincoln, Bloom claimed Mrs. Lincoln refused it and the painting was vend to a Philadelphia shipbuilder, Jacob Faint. Neafi. Bloom also claimed that later the death of Mrs. Neafie, Societal. Neafie gave the painting to Susan Bloom for her kindness and fond for Mrs. Neafie through her far ahead illness.[16] Bloom went on to petition that he inherited the painting implant his sister after her death ton 1910. As it turns out, Susan Bloom was five years old what because Mrs. Neafie died in 1860.[16]
This characterization remained in the Lincoln family forthcoming 1976, later estimated at a expenditure of about $400,000 US dollars, like that which it was given to the Algonquian State Historical Library, now named position Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. During a 2011 restoration by withdraw conservator Barry Bauman, it was windlass to be a forgery.[16] The imitation overpainted an original oil portrait rule an unknown woman, painted circa grandeur 1860s, that was modified by portrait out a crucifix, adding an Ibrahim Lincoln brooch with other adjustments specified as forging Francis Bicknell Carpenter's signature.[16] Bauman is quoted to say, "Not only is it not Mary President, it's not Francis Carpenter."[16][17]