Lost Lincoln Portrait From Teddy Roosevelt's Office Reemerges After A Century

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A Lincoln portrait once kept in Theodore Roosevelt's office has resurfaced from a private family collection, and it is now headed for public view in North Dakota.

The work, by American realist Ernest Wells, will be shown at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (TRPL) when it opens in Medora on July 4. Roosevelt scholars have confirmed the painting's origins after the portrait was brought to the library for review, and its current owner, David Soderquist, has offered it on indefinite loan.

The painting's history is unusually well documented. Wells made the portrait from a daguerreotype taken the day Abraham Lincoln spoke at New York's Cooper Union. Roosevelt wrote to the artist on October 5, 1903, saying,“I am greatly pleased with the Lincoln picture,” and adding that it was“a reproduction of the photograph of him which, to me personally, appeals most.” The portrait hung in Roosevelt's office throughout his presidency.

Roosevelt's attachment to Lincoln was longstanding and deeply personal. His father had been friends with the wartime president, and Roosevelt saw Lincoln's funeral procession as a child. He also began collecting Lincoln memorabilia early in life. John Hay, Roosevelt's eventual secretary of state, once gave him a ring containing a lock of Lincoln's hair, which Roosevelt wore to his second inauguration.

After leaving office, Roosevelt gave the portrait to Colonel William H. Crook, a family friend who had served as Lincoln's first bodyguard. Crook later sold it to J.P. Morgan for $300 in January 1912, with the help of Belle da Costa Greene. Morgan died the following year, and when his collection was dispersed, the Wells portrait did not go to a museum. It eventually entered the collection of Westchester antique dealers Ann and Jack Rouchaud, then passed after Ann Rouchard's death in 2021 to her nephew and his brother.

The work's reappearance adds a tangible object to Roosevelt's well-known Lincoln devotion, and it gives the new presidential library a rare chance to present a piece of White House history with a clear chain of custody. For a museum opening on the eve of America's 250th anniversary, that kind of provenance carries particular weight.

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