The lady and the scamp

摘要

Is she or isn't she? That question has been answered with a resounding "no": The portrait purported to be of Mary Todd Lincoln that hung in the governor's mansion in Springfield, 111., for 32 years is a fake. Attributed to famed painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter, the portrait was supposedly made in secret as a surprise gift from Mrs. Lincoln to the president. After his assassination in April 1865, the story went, the distraught Mrs. Lincoln ordered Carpenter to dispose of the work; it passed through other hands until the Lincoln family acquired it in 1929.