Description
This portrait of Abraham Lincoln, taken on November 8, 1863, eleven days before his famous Gettysburg Address, is believed by scholars and enthusiasts to be the best photograph of him ever taken. The expressive contours of Lincoln’s face and his penetrating gaze were famously difficult to capture in pictures, but Alexander Gardner’s close-up portrait, very revolutionary in comparison to the traditional full-length portrait style, comes closest to preserving them.
