WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has installed a rare, life-sized portrait of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
According to a release from the National Portrait Gallery, the 9-foot-tall oil painting was created in 1865 by W.F.K. Travers. It is one of three known, life-size paintings of Lincoln and will be part of the museum's “America’s Presidents” exhibition, which ends with Stuart’s Lansdowne painting of George Washington. It has been nearly 150 years since the two paintings were on view together at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
The oil painting is on long-term loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, which was founded by Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, who acquired the portrait from her family in the 1930s.
Along with the painting, the ongoing “America’s Presidents” exhibit also acquired casts of Lincoln's face and hands.
"Designed for blind visitors and those with low vision, the new display will present a free-standing structure with 3D-printed copies of one face mask and a set of two hands by Leonard Volk and one face mask by Clark Mills," the release reads.
The new additions will be available before the museum's Presidential Family Fun Day on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free.
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