Mary Todd Lincoln 
portrait is labeled fake

SPRINGFIELD – A famous portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s wife that hung in the Illinois governor’s mansion in Springfield for more than three decades – along with the presidential folklore that followed it – is a fake, officials said.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum curator James Cornelius said Saturday the painting of Mary Todd Lincoln and its famous backstory appear to be a fraud, discovered when the painting was recently sent for a cleaning and an art restorer noted the signature and other details on the painting appeared to have been added later.

According to Illinois folklore, Mary Todd Lincoln had Francis Carpenter secretly paint her portrait as a surprise for the 16th president, but Lincoln was assassinated before she had a chance to give it to him.

Instead, it appears that the painting – which officials now say depicts an anonymous woman and
was painted by an anonymous painter – was altered by another painter who then invented the story about Mary Todd Lincoln, one that has been repeated for decades.