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Eloquent Impressions Cases
The Eloquent Impressions exhibit cases located in the Western Currency Facility Visitor Center display the art of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Objects in the Eloquent Impressions cases are intended to show the range and creativity of Bureau engravers and designers who have worked to present counterfeit-safe, but visually pleasing banknotes.
Picturing President Lincoln
About the Exhibit: On February 9, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln sat for his portrait at Mathew Brady’s photographic studio in Washington, DC. The photographs taken during this sitting were intended for use by the artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter in his painting depicting Lincoln and his Cabinet during the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
A year and a half earlier, the Union Army’s victory over Confederate forces at the Battle of Antietam, Maryland, had provided the occasion President Lincoln needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. The tide of the Civil War was turning, and the Union looked strong and confident in its struggle against the South. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln read the proclamation to his Cabinet. Freedom for slaves in the rebellious States would occur on January 1, 1863.
During the sitting on February 9, 1864, at least seven different poses were taken by Anthony Berger, one of Brady’s photographers. In time, the photographs taken by Berger were to leave a visual legacy of the Civil War President. In 1864, Carpenter memorialized both the Emancipation Proclamation and the photography session when his painting was unveiled to the public. Then, in 1869, this sitting took on even greater importance when an engraved portrait of Lincoln, based on one of the photographs, was used on the face of a $100 United States note.
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