Historic Lincoln Painting Leaving Madison As Part Of Smithsonian Loan

MADISON, NJ — A life-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the wall of the Hartley Dodge Memorial building, which was recently revealed to be a very historically significant painting of the former president, will be hung in the Smithsonian.

Hartley Dodge Foundation Trustee Anne MacCowatt announced at the Jan. 9 council meeting that the large painting will soon have a new temporary home, as the foundation has agreed to loan the work of art to the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery for five years.

The painting is scheduled to leave Madison later this month, and it will be replaced by a high-quality reproduction while the original is on loan.

According to MacCowatt, the Hartley Dodge Foundation has no plans to sell the painting and has gone on the record to state that no sale will be completed while the painting is loaned to the Smithsonian.

The Hartley Dodge Foundation is a charitable organization founded in 1935 by philanthropist Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, who commissioned Madison's borough hall, the magnificent Hartley Dodge Memorial Building.

The organization's mission statement is to "monitor the architectural and historic integrity of the Hartley Dodge Memorial, manage the foundation's art collection, and steward its endowment to advance those purposes," MacCowatt said.

According to MacCowatt, the Lincoln portrait has been in the sights of several institutions since 2021. The foundation spent time investigating each inquiry and evaluating them for quality, security, and the audience who would have access to the painting.

"The clear winner was the National Portrait Gallery. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution," MacCowatt said.

The Lincoln painting will hang in the Gallery of Presidents, which is considered the hallmark of the National Portrait Gallery. "It has portraits of every president and most of the first ladies as well," MacCowatt said.

The Lincoln will go on display at the National Portrait Gallery on Feb. 10, alongside George Stuart's historic 1796 "Lansdowne" painting of George Washington. These two paintings happened to hang next to each other in the main gallery of Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition in 1876.

"This is the first time that we know of that they are going to be back together again for a little while," MacCowatt said.

According to the foundation, one of the reasons for the loan was the opportunity to share the historic painting with a wider audience. The National Portrait Gallery receives approximately two million visitors per year, the vast majority of whom are children.

The foundation was also able to determine through research that the Lincoln painting was once in the public eye, but it was over a century ago. The painting is thought to have hung in several areas of the Capitol Building during the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, and it was previously attempted to be acquired by Congress.

"It's a humbling thing to sit right here, meeting after meeting and to look at that portrait and to understand the history behind it. It is very special to Madison, but this is an opportunity to share it with the world," Mayor Bob Conley said.