First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation Before the Cabinet

Abraham Lincoln sits with his Cabinet members around a table. The table is covered with books and papers and Lincoln is holding papers in his lap."One of the most widely circulated of all the Lincoln prints published during his lifetime, Ritchie's superior adaptation of Carpenter's painting was apparently issued before the artist had completed final revisions on his canvas. The portrait of Lincoln in the engraving bears a much closer resemblance to Carpenter's preliminary sketches than to the Lincoln in the finished painting. The Independent thought the print 'large enough, when hanging on the wall of a room, to show the portraits distinctly at a considerable distance,' and The Evening Post predicted that the engraving would 'take its place among the pictures which the people hang upon their walls to commemorate one of the great and most notable acts in the nation's history.' The engraving was [later] pirated [by Edward Herline] with little regard for the precise and politically symbolic arrangement of the principals in the Carpenter original.