1956.24.223.3.b
untitled
Artist
John La Farge (John LaFarge)
(New York City, New York, 3/31/1835 - 11/11/1910, Providence, Rhode Island)
Title
untitled
Creation Date
April 1865
Century
mid-19th century
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
paper
Credit Line
Gift of Miss Susan Dwight Bliss
Copyright
Public Domain
Accession Number
1956.24.223.3.b
In response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, mourners recorded their shock, anger, and sorrow in diaries and letters, in the margins of account books, and on scraps of paper. They documented their reactions as a way to grasp what felt utterly unfathomable, but also because they knew they were living through a historic event. Artist John La Farge conveys his despair in this sketchbook drawing. The angel carries what could be a sword or spear in his left hand, possibly alluding to the archangel Michael’s battle against evil--a battle, La Farge infers, lost to Lincoln’s assassin. Or the weapon might evoke the laying down of arms in the Civil War, which had ended with Union victory less than a week before John Wilkes Booth murdered the president at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. La Farge captured this cruel reversal, from jubilation to anguish, with the word “Victory” slightly obscured behind the angel’s wings.
