A patinated bronze figure of Abraham Lincoln, standing bare-headed in a frock coat and holding the Emancipation Proclamation in his lowered right hand, the scroll incised with its title and with the signature A. Lincoln, raised on a stepped square base. Signed to the base Geo. E. Bissell and dated 1893, and stamped with the cachet of the Paris foundry E. Gruet Jeune, Fondeur, 44 bis Avenue de Châtillon, Paris. Height 17 inches (43 cm).
The model derives from Bissell's monumental standing Lincoln for the Scottish-American Soldiers Monument in the Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh, unveiled on 21 August 1893. The Edinburgh monument was the first statue of Lincoln raised outside the United States, and it remains the only American Civil War memorial in Europe. A second monumental version was later erected at Clermont, Iowa. In the reduction, as on the monument, Lincoln holds the Emancipation Proclamation, the document that gives the figure its title.
The present bronze is the Paris cast, by the foundry of Edmond Gruet, known as E. Gruet Jeune, active from 1891 until 1904, and among the few Parisian founders of the period to work in the lost-wax method, and the founder of some of the best-known bronzes of Frederick MacMonnies. Bissell lived and worked in Paris through much of the 1880s and 1890s. The Gruet casts, dated 1893, the year of the monument, precede the commercial edition of the subject issued in three sizes by the Gorham Company of New York under a 1898 copyright. This is the largest size, and it retains the crisp definition of the face, hair, and incised proclamation associated with the earlier Paris casting. The Gruet examples are encountered far less often than the Gorham casts that account for most of the models on the market.
The bronze retains a warm, dark brown patina of good tone, with wear consistent with age and handling. Signed, dated, and foundry-stamped as described. A formal condition report is available on request.
Height 17 inches (43 cm).
A patinated bronze figure of Abraham Lincoln, standing bare-headed in a frock coat and holding the Emancipation Proclamation in his lowered right hand, the scroll incised with its title and with the signature A. Lincoln, raised on a stepped square base. Signed to the base Geo. E. Bissell and dated 1893, and stamped with the cachet of the Paris foundry E. Gruet Jeune, Fondeur, 44 bis Avenue de Châtillon, Paris. Height 17 inches (43 cm).
The model derives from Bissell's monumental standing Lincoln for the Scottish-American Soldiers Monument in the Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh, unveiled on 21 August 1893. The Edinburgh monument was the first statue of Lincoln raised outside the United States, and it remains the only American Civil War memorial in Europe. A second monumental version was later erected at Clermont, Iowa. In the reduction, as on the monument, Lincoln holds the Emancipation Proclamation, the document that gives the figure its title.
The present bronze is the Paris cast, by the foundry of Edmond Gruet, known as E. Gruet Jeune, active from 1891 until 1904, and among the few Parisian founders of the period to work in the lost-wax method, and the founder of some of the best-known bronzes of Frederick MacMonnies. Bissell lived and worked in Paris through much of the 1880s and 1890s. The Gruet casts, dated 1893, the year of the monument, precede the commercial edition of the subject issued in three sizes by the Gorham Company of New York under a 1898 copyright. This is the largest size, and it retains the crisp definition of the face, hair, and incised proclamation associated with the earlier Paris casting. The Gruet examples are encountered far less often than the Gorham casts that account for most of the models on the market.
The bronze retains a warm, dark brown patina of good tone, with wear consistent with age and handling. Signed, dated, and foundry-stamped as described. A formal condition report is available on request.
Height 17 inches (43 cm).
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