Bronze life mask and hands of Abraham Lincoln

Bronze life mask and hands of Abraham Lincoln. This bronze grouping was made from original plaster molds taken of Lincoln's face and hands by the Chicago sculptor Leonard Wells Volk (1828-1895) in 1860. In 1886, Volk's friend, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, initiated a fund-raising campaign to purchase the casts for the National Museum (later known as the Smithsonian Institution). Plaster copies sold for fifty dollars, while bronze copies cost eighty-five dollars. (Photo by Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)