Bronze Right Hand of Lincoln from 1860 Volk Life Casting

This solid bronze casting of Abraham Lincoln's right hand was likely cast from one of several bronze castings that were prepared in 1886 from a plaster mold made by sculptor Leonard Wells Volk in Springfield, Illinois, in May 1860, shortly after the Republican Party nominated Lincoln as their nominee for president.

[ABRAHAM LINCOLN] Leonard W. Volk, Bronze Casting of Abraham Lincoln's Right Hand, ca. 1880s. 7" x 5" x 3.5". Inscription on the bottom reads, "A. LINCOLN. / fecit 1860 L. W. Volk."

Historical Background
Leonard W. Volk first met Abraham Lincoln during Lincoln's historic 1858 debates with Volk's wife's cousin, Stephen A. Douglas. When they met, Lincoln promised to sit for the young sculptor. When Lincoln was attending court in the spring of 1860 in Chicago, Volk went to the courthouse and reminded Lincoln of his promise. Lincoln agreed to visit Volk's studio, where Volk made a plaster mask of Lincoln's face to reduce the number of sittings that would be necessary.

In May, Volk traveled by train to Springfield to deliver the bust. Volk arrived shortly after news of Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency by the Republicans meeting in Chicago. Volk insisted that he needed to create a full-length statue of Lincoln, and Volk took measurements and made casts of Lincoln's hands. Volk suggested that Lincoln should be holding something in his right hand, so Lincoln went to the woodshed and returned with the end of a piece of a broom handle. After taking the measurements and making the casts, Volk returned to Chicago.

Volk never completed the statue, and he gave the casts of Lincoln's face and hands to his son Douglas Volk (1856-1935), who was an accomplished painter. In 1888, a group of thirty-three individual and institutional subscribers presented the original plaster mask and hands and "the first bronze cast of the face-mold, and bronze casts of the hands" to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, with the condition that "the original plaster casts should never be tampered with." Each of the subscribers received either a plaster or bronze set of replicas, and future casts were likely made from one or more of these bronze replicas.

Possible Provenance
The owners of this piece provided the following provenance:
•1882: W. H. H. Smith (1841-1930) purchased it at auction of White House materials
•W. H. H. Smith to his son, Charles S. Smith (1867-1951), who married Olive Mitchell Thompson (1889-1982)
•1977: Charles S. Smith to his nephew Earl L. Thompson (1927-2007)
•1999: sold through Global Booksearch

In 1881, new President James Garfield and his First Lady Lucretia Garfield moved into the White House and made plans to refurbish the Green Room. Before they had an opportunity, a disgruntled office seeker shot President Garfield, and he died a few months later. His Vice President Chester A. Arthur did not move into the White House until it had been redecorated, and the rooms were cleared of damaged and unfashionable furniture. Ultimately, the Duncanson Brothers, Washington auctioneers, sold twenty-four wagonloads of furniture and thirty barrels of china at an auction held on April 14, 1882. A crowd of 5,000 bid on the items, which included "some antique articles and souvenirs among these goods," though no contemporary accounts mention bronzes of Lincoln's hands or face. A Baltimore newspaper reported that "Furniture of the pre-Lincoln period did not bring high rates, but a few articles from the antique times before Jackson found purchasers at good prices" (The Sun [Baltimore, MD], April 15, 1882, 4:1). It seems unlikely that this bronze casting was created before 1886. Therefore, it could not have been sold in the 1882 auction of White House furnishings. It is more likely that W. H. H. Smith obtained a bronze replica sometime after 1886.

Leonard Wells Volk (1828-1895) was born in New York and followed his father's trade as a marble cutter in Massachusetts. In 1848, Volk opened an artist's studio in St. Louis, Missouri. His wife's cousin, Stephen A. Douglas, supported Volk's travel to Rome for additional study from 1855 to 1857. When he returned to the United States, Volk settled in Chicago, where he helped found the Chicago Academy of Design, the precursor to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the spring of 1860, Abraham Lincoln sat for Volk while attending court in Chicago. In mid-May 1860, Volk presented a completed cabinet bust to the Lincolns in Springfield and asked to cast Lincoln's hands.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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Other Bronzes Made from the Volk Castings

Douglas Volk apparently gave the casts on to a fellow art student named Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896). In 1886, poet and editor Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) saw them in Eaton's studio and, with sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and art collector Thomas B. Clarke, began a subscription list to donate them to the Smithsonian Institution. Subscribers could purchase a set of plaster replicas for $50 or bronze replicas for $85. However, the bronze hands had the following inscription on the wrist end: "COPYRIGHT 1886 BY LEONARD W. VOLK. THIS CAST OF THE HAND OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS MADE FROM THE FIRST REPLICA OF THE ORIGINAL MADE AT SPRINGFIELD ILL THE SUNDAY FOLLOWING HIS NOMINATION TO THE PRESIDENCY." Saint-Gaudens used Volk's castings to prepare his larger-than-life bronze sculpture Abraham Lincoln: The Man, which resides in Lincoln Park in Chicago.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a complete set of bronze hands and face donated by Leonard Volk himself on December 2, 1891. They have similar markings as this hand; the wrist end reads "A. LINCOLN / L. W. VOLK / fecit 1860." Although the precise date of the Art Institute's bronzes is unknown, curators believe the bronzes were made prior to the donation of the original plaster casts to the Smithsonian in 1888.

Jules Berchem (1855-1930), who worked in Volk's studio, did a bronze version of the mask and hands from a model he received from Volk. Berchem was the proprietor of the American Art Bronze Foundry in Chicago and cast many works of art, including the castings of Edward Kemeys's Lions outside the Art Institute of Chicago in 1893. Berchem presented a set to the Chicago Historical Society in 1913. The inscription on the wrist end reads "Presented by J. Berchem / A. LINCOLN / L. W. VOLK / 1860 fecit."