Listen to a guided audio description of the Lincoln tactile reproductions.

 

Introduction and Orientation

Abraham Lincoln Face Mask, 1860

Abraham Lincoln Face Mask, 1865

Abraham Lincoln Hands, 1860

 

Transcript of audio descriptions of the Lincoln tactile models:

Introduction and Orientation

Welcome to the guided description for the tactile reproductions of the plaster casts of President Abraham Lincoln’s hands and face. The casts date from about 1917 and are on display in the nearby plexiglass case. Both the casts and these 3D printed reproductions are part of the museum’s signature permanent exhibition, America’s Presidents.

There are four tactile models: one of each of Lincoln’s hands as well as two life masks that were made five years apart. While the plaster casts are ivory in color, these models, which rest on raised oval bases, are medium gray due to the materials used in the 3D printing process.

This guided description will begin at the front of the tactile display. You will know you’re at the front because it’s the long side where the first object on your left is a face mask. If the first object on your left is a hand, then you are at the back of the display. As you orient yourself, feel free to pause this recording and explore the print or braille labels that provide basic information about the tactile models.

Now that you’re in front of the display, we’d like to give you an orientation to the gallery space and exhibition. If you prefer to go directly to the description of the tactile models, skip to the next audio file. Otherwise, keep listening.

You are currently in one of the six chronological sections that make up the America’s Presidents exhibition. This section is called 1861–1901: The Crisis of the Union and it features portrait paintings, photographs, and sculptures of Abraham Lincoln to William McKinley. This rectangular gallery is grand and spacious, with a fifteen-foot-high ceiling, tall windows, and traditional decor. The walls and floor are decorated in variations of beige, cream, and soft blue. Diffuse light filters in through the window shades, and recessed lighting bathes the artwork in a warm glow. Ahead of you and to the right, a wide doorway opens onto the next gallery. Behind you, four wide stone columns frame the adjacent gallery.

The case with the plaster casts that these replicas are based on stands parallel to and between this tactile display and a wall about fifteen feet in front of you. On that wall, facing you, hangs the iconic “cracked plate” photograph of Lincoln by famed nineteenth-century photographer Alexander Gardner. To your right, on a partition in the center of the gallery, hangs a large full-length oil painting by W. F. K. Travers. Painted in 1865, it shows Lincoln standing as he holds a copy of the Constitution.

Please go to the next link to hear about the first face mask from 1860.

Abraham Lincoln Face Mask, 1860

We will begin with the model on the far left. In 1860, the artist Leonard Volk made a mold of Lincoln’s face, which formed the basis of the 1917 cast. As you move your hands all around this replica of that cast, take note of the deep-set eyes, broad forehead, prominent nose, sunken cheeks, and wide, closed mouth. The depressions where Lincoln’s eyes would be appear to have been formed when the artist pressed his thumb into the plaster sockets when the cast, or positive copy, was made from the original mold, which is a negative imprint.

From the sides of his nose, two deep grooves or laugh lines travel diagonally down to the edges of his mouth, where they connect with vertical creases in his cheeks. Notice Lincoln’s smooth face; he’s not yet grown the beard that he would in 1861.

Allow your hands to feel the bumpy and irregular perimeter of the mask, which includes a portion of each ear.

Now reach behind, into the concave back of the mask, and notice how, in contrast to the smooth face, it has a rough texture. If you feel closely enough, you might notice the outlines of strips of plaster.

The noted sculptor Leonard Volk made the original life mask of Lincoln in his Chicago studio in 1860, when Lincoln was fifty-one years old and about to run for president. Volk wanted to make a bust of Lincoln to add to his collection of American statesmen, so he created this life mask to use as a reference for his sculpture. According to Volk, who gave accounts about his time with the future president, Lincoln found the process of letting wet plaster dry on his face and its removal, which pulled his skin, "anything but agreeable."

In our time, we take for granted how scarce images were in the nineteenth century, but just like today, people wanted to know what important public figures looked like. Life masks, therefore, were very popular because they created an exact copy of the person’s features. Copies of Volk’s mask became valuable to other artists who portrayed Lincoln, both in sculptures and paintings.

Now let’s move to the right and explore the cast of the second face mask that was made in 1865.

Abraham Lincoln Face Mask, 1865

In 1865, about two months before his death, having been re-elected for a second term, Abraham Lincoln permitted sculptor Clark Mills to make a second life mask of his face. Notice how his face has changed since 1860. Now his face seems gaunt. His skin is furrowed with deep wrinkles. His eye sockets have deepened, and his bone structure is more prominent. And unlike the earlier partial mask, this one is a complete head with fully formed ears.

Notice that the back of the head is smooth and hairless. The plaster, which is wet upon application, would only have been applied to Lincoln’s face. After the plaster dried and came off Lincoln’s face in large pieces, the artist Mills would have reassembled the fragments to make a mold. When creating the cast, or positive copy from the negative mold, Mills completed the head. This included rounding out the skull, shaping the eyelids, and adding a beard and eyebrows, even etching individual hairs into them.

Compared to Volk’s cast made five years earlier, this one illustrates the great toll that the Civil War had taken on Lincoln’s health. His secretary, John Hay, remarked on the dramatic difference in Lincoln’s two life masks, noting that the first mask, “is a man of fifty-one, and young for his years. . . . It is a face full of life, of energy, of vivid aspiration. . . . The other is so sad and peaceful in its infinite repose . . . . a look as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their worst without victory.”

Moving slightly further to the right, you encounter Lincoln’s hands. To hear about the hands, go to the next audio file.

Abraham Lincoln Hands, 1860

The molds that were the basis of these hand casts were made in 1860, within a few days of the first life mask. Leonard Volk made them at the dining room table of Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois. As you explore them, notice their size relative to your own hands. The one on the left, Lincoln’s right hand, grasps something. It’s the sawed-off section of a broom handle which, according to Volk, Lincoln fetched from his tool shed upon the artist’s request. Notice the slight bumps just above his knuckles, which could be the edges of the plaster strips that were applied in making the molds. His left hand, on the far right, feels more swollen, with looser skin. Volk attributed the difference in size of the hands to “excessive hand-shaking the evening before.”

During their session, Volk already intended to use these casts, in combination with the recently completed face mask, to fashion a full-length statue of Lincoln. Completed in 1876, it still stands today on the second-floor rotunda in the state capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.

The molds were made to record Lincoln’s features in an almost scientific manner. Now that you have come face-to-face and hand-to-hand with Lincoln, how do you understand the man differently? What might it have been like for him to live through and lead the country during the Civil War?