[Portfolio of 40 lithographs of Civil War Union officers]

Cincinnati: Ehrgott, Forbriger, & Company, 1862. 40 lithographed plates (2 hand colored). Folio. Contemporary half dark brown morocco and cloth covered boards, worn. Some foxing, a few plates with edge tears. 40 lithographed plates (2 hand colored). Folio. The patriotism inspired by the Civil War, particularly in the urban centers of the north, engendered a dramatic growth in the production of various media, such as sheet music, prints, photographs, and other ephemera, marketed to individuals by enterprising printers, stationers, photographers, print sellers, and the like. Among these was the sale of portraits of famous Union politicians and soldiers. Most of these popular prints were sold by publishers, picture dealers, or itinerant street sellers as individual items, although at least one enterprising seller during the Civil War offered prints bound in albums. Although seldom encountered, the best known of these albums comprise Union portraits by the Cincinnati lithographic firm Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co., like this one.

Founded in 1856, the firm issued seventy-nine different prints of sixty-nine Union politicians and military officers between 1861 and 1864. The present collection represents nearly half of Ehrgott, Forbriger & Company's entire series of Union portraiture and includes Lincoln, two cabinet members (Chase and Stanton), three governors (David Todd of Ohio, O.P. Morton of Indiana, and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee), twenty-three generals, six naval officers, Col. Elmer Ellsworth (the first high-ranking Union officer to die in the war) and more.

Although unable to find advertisements for the sale of Ehrgott, Forbriger & Company albums, Chris Lane's study of extant examples of such albums found a number of common characteristics: containing approximately forty prints (though varying in the selection and exact number); bound in plain cloth covers with black or brown spines; the presence of midwestern governors; a Gibson & Co. portrait of Winfield Scott; and the portraits of Navy officers in the rear. He posited that although without a titlepage (and therefore unlikely to have been distributed by the lithographic company itself), the survival of nearly identical albums proves these were not simply a case where the prints were gathered and bound by different collectors, but issued by a single, as yet unidentified midwestern agent.

Interestingly, Ehrgott, Forbinger & Company used no more than twelve lithographic stones to create at least forty-five portraits by fashioning new heads but reusing stones with the same bodies and backgrounds. "To save the time required for artists to compose new designs whenever a new military celebrity emerged, printmakers could quickly insert new portraits onto existing designs and reissue the results as 'new.' Such recycled adaptations also obviated the need for thorough research - and saved artists' time in the bargain. No wartime printmaker made more frequent or more ingenious use of this system than Ehrgott, Forbriger & Company of Cincinnati. The firm issued a series of military portraits around 1862 that offered stock equestrian poses, into which were inserted, in almost amusement park, head-through-the-hole fashion, a succession of portraits of the latest military heroes. To produce the prints, Ehrgott, Forbriger created the design on a lithographic stone, printed as many copies as it thought would sell to admirers of the subject, and then erased the face, inserted a new one, and printed yet another set of portraits" - Neely & Holzer.

This album includes the following:
"The Star Spangled Banner," handcolored (Currier & Ives, Peters 921 variant).
Portrait of George Washington, handcolored, with only a facsimile signature as caption (Currier & Ives, Peters 2045)
"A. Lincoln, President of the U.S.," uncredited
"Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury," uncredited
"E,M. Stanton, Sec. War." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"David Tod, Gov . of Ohio," uncredited
"O.P. Morton, Gov. of Indiana," uncredited
"Andy Johnson, Military Gov. of Tenn.," uncredited
"Lieut. Gen. Winfield Scott" (Gibson & Co., Cincinnati)
"Henry W. Halleck, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A. ," uncredited
"Geo. G. Meade, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A., Commander of the Potomac Army." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"W.S. Rosecrans, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"Ulysses S. Grant, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Joe. Hooker, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A., uncredited
"A.E. Burnside, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"Nath'l P. Banks, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"O.M. Mitchell, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"S.R. Curtis, Major General, U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati); 1-inch closed tear
"Robt. L. McCook, Col. 9th (First German) Regt., O.V.U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"August Willich, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Wm. B. Franklin, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Lewis Wallace, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"A. McD. McCook, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited; 1-inch closed tear
"Nath'l Lyon, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A., Killed at the Battle of Springfield" (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"John C. Fremont, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"S.P. Heintzelman, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"Jefferson C. Davis, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"Corcoran, Vol. 69th Reg't N.Y.S.M." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Jno. A. McClernand, Brig. Gen'l, U.S.A.," uncredited
"J.C. Sullivan, Brig. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited; detached
"E.E. Ellsworth, Col. Ellsworth's N.Y. Zouaves," uncredited
"Franz Sigel, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Carl Schurz, Maj. Gen. U.S.A.," uncredited
"Louis M. Goldsborough, Flag Officer, U.S. Navy" (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"E.V. Sumner, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A.," uncredited
"S.F. Dupont, Adm. U.S.N.," uncredited
"Commodore Foote, U.S.N." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"Commodore Farragut, U.S. Navy" (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati)
"D. Hunter, Maj. Gen'l U.S.A." (Ehrgott, Forbringer & Co., Cincinnati); quite foxed
"John L. Worden, Commanding the Montauk, Capt. U.S. Navy," uncredited. Neely & Holzer, The Union Image, pp.39-49. Milton Kaplan, "Heads of States" in Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 6 (1970), pp.135-50; Chris Lane, "The Case of the Hydra-Headed Stones" in Art as Image: Prints and Promotion in Cincinnati, Ohio (Ohio University Press, 2001)