by jerry7171

In June, 1915, Daniel Chester French created this quick sketch model of what would become the statue at the Lincoln Memorial.

His friend, Henry Bacon, was the architect and a long time friend who had wanted him to do the sculpture. After conversations about what the statue should look like, they agreed that it should be of Lincoln seated. This would present him as more human and approachable figure as opposed to having him stand tall.

This model is small, only about 10 inches / 25.4 cm. It isn't very detailed as it was intended to be a preliminary model. The genesis of the spirit of the final sculpture can be seen in it.

What really makes this model special is how French eventually switched the position of the legs and hands. The left foot is extended out and the right hand is clenched. If you look at the marble sculpture at the Lincoln Memorial you can see that the right foot is extended and the left hand is clenched.

This model had Lincoln sitting in a chair with two side stretchers. It ended with a raised square back. In the final design the chair was changed into a Roman-style throne chair with a smooth rounded exterior. There is no raised, squared back. The concept of the fasces was carried to the final design.

Photographs with this sketch model and the final study model that was used to scale up to the full sized sculpture clearly show how the whole of it was largely mirrored for the final design.

The model can be seen at Chesterwood, near Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It sits on the corner of the final scale model of the Lincoln Memorial statue in the studio.

How I Designed This

A damaged reproduction

I've long wanted to recreate this small sculpture as it is almost unknown to the wider public. It was the first tangible concept and striking for showing how French organically tweaked and changed the concept afterwards. There aren't many photos of it online. I knew I'd have to use a copy and I waited until a cast copy came up for sale. When it was delivered, I was disappointed to find it had been badly damaged. I did my best to reassemble it but had to use auto body filler in many spots to fill cracks and holes. Thus, this model isn't what I'd consider the best but I'm still sharing it as it is better than nothing. I snapped over 250+ photos with my iPhone XS Max, using the Halide app so I could have DNGs. I locked the camera ISO at 50 to ensure a more consistent exposure. I frequently reset the focus to ensure important details were sharply captured. I imported them into Capture One and set to work cleaning up the details and adjusting the highlights and shadows. I then exported the best shots as TIFs to use in Agisoft Metashape. In Metashape I used the high setting at each step to maximize the details. I exported the resulting OBJ to Meshmixer to further clean up, make manifold, and scale the model. I exported it back to Metashape as an OBJ to decimate it in steps to ensure it kept the details while reducing the file size. Once I was satisfied I exported the model as a STL and double checked it in Meshmixer a final time.