[LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President.]. SUMNER, George (1817-1863), Political economist. Autograph letter signed ("GeoSumner") to the painter Thomas Hicks (1823-1890), Boston, 14 June 1860. 4 pages, 8vo. A VIVID FIRST-HAND DESCRIPTION OF CANDIDATE LINCOLN. A fine letter offering a description of President Lincoln: "I am delighted with the thought that you are to paint 'Old Abe', Abe the calumniated, for he has been called old and plain, when he is, as you will find, young and handsome! This frightful daguerreotype which is now going the rounds, must have been taken in a moment of fatigue, when all that gives character to the face, was in repose. I wish you could have seen him, as I saw him last February in Jacksonville [Illinois], when his large, liquid eye, slowly moving in its orbit, suddenly lighted up, in response to a bright thought in his brain, and gave a flash which, had I been a woman, would have transfixed me. Now, my dear fellow, can you not combine these two expressions--the one of thoughtful sadness, the other of brilliancy and force? It is a hard task I know, for only a large soul can catch the fugitive flash of another..." Sumner adds that he has no doubt that Hicks is "a great artist," and "a true Republican!" Hicks, an accomplished portraitist, studied in Europe before establishing a studio in New York, and was the first to paint Lincoln as a Presidential candidate: "In 1860 after the nomination at Chicago, Mr. Schaus, the art publisher of New York, sent me to Springfield, Illinois to paint a portrait of Mr. Lincoln to be published for the campaign of that year" (quoted in Holzer, Boritt and Neely, The Lincoln Image, p.45). The portrait was widely circulated in the engraving published by Schaus. While some Republicans criticized Lincoln's tousle-headed appearance, Lincoln himself stated that Hicks had given him "a pleasanter expression than I usually have." Hicks' painting is now in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society (for a detailed account, see Holzer Borritt and Neely, pp.43-51).