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ALBERT P. HENRY
(American, 1836-1872)

Detail: Abraham Lincoln, 1865
Marble
Deposited at the J.B. Speed Art Museum by the Citizens of Louisville.
Courtesy U.S. Judge Shackelford Miller and Mr. Neville S. Bullit.
Conservation funded by The Alliance of The Speed Art Museum, 1999, PL 1943.1

Albert P. Henry was born in Versailles, Kentucky. As a young man, he worked as a clerk at Hillman Iron Works in Princeton, Kentucky, and showed no inclination toward art until later in life. While serving in the Fifteenth Kentucky Cavalry during the Civil War, Henry was captured and sent to the Confederate Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. There he taught himself sculpture by carving soup bones.

After the Civil War, Albert Henry moved to Washington, D.C. to study art. Because of Henry's war record, President Lincoln agreed to sit for the artist, and in fact, Henry's plaster model for this sculpture was one of the few for which Lincoln actually posed. Lincoln developed a liking for Henry and appointed him Consul to Ancona, Italy, so that he could conveniently pursue his art studies.

In Italy, Henry carved this marble bust from his plaster model. The Lincoln Monumental Association of Louisville purchased the bust in 1867 and unveiled it in an elaborate ceremony at the Federal Court in Louisville. James P. Speed, who served as attorney general under Lincoln, spoke on the virtues of the late president at the unveiling.