Face-to-Face: Mary Todd Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln portrait
About the Project
As part of the National Portrait Gallery's education program "Face-to-Face," Erin Carlson Mast, curator at Lincoln's Cottage, discusses Mary Todd Lincoln. It is difficult to know the character of the Lincolns' relationship. When Lincoln wed Mary Todd in 1842, he married into a well-established Illinois family. Mary was strong-willed, capricious, and adamant. When she eventually showed signs of derangement, her instability colored discussions of her earlier years. Both of Lincoln's secretaries hated her and gained their revenge in their memoirs of the White House years. But from the best evidence, Lincoln was patient with a woman who could be difficult, not least because she suffered terribly at the death of their sons. After Willie died in 1862, she became increasingly fearful and detached, worrying about Lincoln himself, consulting spiritualists, and spending time away from Washington. This small sketch by Pierre Morand, circa 1864, seems to show her departing on such a trip, and the artist has juxtaposed the figures to suggest a gap or tension between them that will never be fully known. The sketch of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln is displayed on the museum's first floor, in the exhibition "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln." See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln . Recorded at NPG, March 26, 2009. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, c. 1864 / Pierre Morand / Ink and opaque white gouache on paper / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Face-to-Face talk currently located on the National Portrait Gallery's iTunesU page. ["Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln" by Pierre Morand. NPG.75.28]
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