Lot 163: [LINCOLN, Abraham]. MILLS, Clark (1810-1883), American sculptor . Plaster cast from the original plaster life mask of President Abraham Lincoln, taken in the White House, Washington, D.C.,11 February 1865, date of cast unknown. 11 x 8 x 7 in.

[LINCOLN, Abraham]. MILLS, Clark (1810-1883), American sculptor. Plaster cast from the original plaster life mask of President Abraham Lincoln, taken in the White House, Washington, D.C.,11 February 1865, date of cast unknown. 11 x 8 x 7 in. approximately, minor rubbing at extremities, small repair at top rear (3/8 x 5/8 in.), otherwise in excellent condition.

LINCOLN'S TRAGIC LIFE-MASK, VIVIDLY SHOWING THE EFFECTS OF FOUR YEARS OF WAR: "THE LOOK OF ONE ON WHOM SORROW AND CARE HAD DONE THEIR WORST WITHOUT VICTORY"

Lincoln sat for two life-masks, one by sculptor Leonard Volk in April 1860 and one by Clark Mills, taken just two months before Lincoln's assassination Mills's striking mask is the only mask of presidential date and is far less common than the Volk mask, which was reproduced in large numbers. The Mills mask is also unique in portraying the entire head of Lincoln, while Volk left the entire back of the head hollow. The Mills mask carefully preserves clear details of skin and hair.

Mills employed an unusual technique for the President. He put a cap over Lincoln's hair and coated Lincoln's face and beard with a light oil, to prevent the plaster sticking. He then applied a thin coat of plaster which dried in about 15 minutes. When dry, Mills asked the subject to twitch his face. The caused the plaster to break neatly into large pieces which Mills carefully gathered up. Later, the pieces were reassembled to yield a perfect likeness. When he saw this mask, the great sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens at first thought it was a death mask. Volk's 1860 mask, he commented, "captures a young, vigorous man, while Mills's mask, is very sad," shockingly portraying the effects of stress and trouble over the last few years. Lincoln's former secretary John Hay, who owned a copy of the Mills life-mask, wrote in 1890 that "the nose is thin, and lengthened by the emaciation of the cheeks; the mouth is fixed like that of an archaic statue; a look as of one whom sorrow and care had done their worst without victory...the whole expression is of unspeakable sadness and all-sufficing strength. Yet the peace is not the dreadful peace of death; it is the peace that passeth understanding" ("Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln," in Century Illustrated Monthly, November 1890).

Mills planned to use the mask in a monumental Civil War memorial sculpture, never completed. His son Theodore A. Mills cast an unknown, but presumably small number of casts after his father's death. (Examples are in the Library of Congress, bequest of Clarence Hay; the Smithsonian, the Carnegie Museum and elsewhere). One example, possibly owned by John Hay, was sold Bonhams, 23 November 2004, lot 9116, $93,250); another was sold here 12 February 2009, lot 38, $35,000.

Provenance: Ellis Mills Frost, M.D., of Pittsburgh, gift from Theodore A. Mills, who was employed by the Carnegie Institute and Museum -- The present owner, by descent.

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN