Sale 2486, Part I - The Harold Holzer Collection of Lincolniana, September 27, 2018

45 c   (PAINTINGS.) [Doubrava, Joseph; artist.] Early folk-art portrait of Lincoln. Oil on canvas, 12 x 7 inches, laid down on board, in period frame; light craquelure, minimal paint loss in a couple of spots. [Waukegan, IL?], circa 1870s [800/1,200] Joseph Doubrava (1853-1912) was a Pennsylvania native who worked in Chicago as a carriage painter until the 1871 fire forced him to relocate to Waukegan, IL. He is not known to have ever sold his paintings. This portrait (probably based on a Brady photograph) was one of 8 Doubrava paintings owned by Edward G. Martin of Waukegan. They were purchased from his estate in 1956 by E.W. Ferry of Waukegan, and soon sold to local newspaper reporter Marvin Cruse (1908-1974). Cruse featured them in a long article in the Waukegan News-Sun: “Likeness of Lincoln Art Traced to County Painter; Work of Joseph Doubrava Found” (7 August 1956), as well as follow-ups on 13, 14, and 15 August, portraying Doubrava as a lost pioneer of Lake County’s regional art. Cruse gave this portrait to Burton Nelson in 1974, and it was acquired by Holzer in the 1970s. Offered with a thick packet of research notes, including clippings of the Cruse articles from 1956.