Object Details
- Caption
- This portrait depicts Mary Jane Hale Welles, wife of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, in a funeral dress. The dress is said to have been sewn and designed by Elizabeth Keckley for the funeral of her son Hubert Gideon Welles in 1862, and again worn by Welles at the funeral of President Lincoln in 1865.
- Description
- A cabinet card portrait of Mary Jane Hale Welles wearing a funeral dress designed by Elizabeth Keckly (sometimes spelled Keckley). The albumen print is on a Henry Ulke card mount with a narrow black border. This full length portrait shows Mary Jane Hale Welles standing in a three quarters turn away from the camera. Wearing a dark colored full-length dress with a train and a dark colored lace shawl, she gazes directly at the viewer. Her right hand rests on a small side table next to her with two books stacked on it. The print is on a card mount with text on the reverse that reads "Henry Ulke, / 278 Pennsylvania Avenue. / Washington, D.C. / 1866."
- Data Source
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Photograph by
- Henry Ulke, German American, 1821 - 1910
- Subject of
- Mary Jane Hale Welles, American, 1817 - 1886
- Elizabeth Keckly, American, 1818 - 1907
- Date
- 1866
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Medium
- albumen and silver on photographic paper on cardboard
- Dimensions
- H x W (Image): 5 1/2 × 3 7/8 in. (14 × 9.9 cm)
- H x W (Sheet): 6 7/16 × 4 3/16 in. (16.4 × 10.6 cm)
- Type
- cabinet photographs
- albumen prints
- portraits
