Before the invention of the typewriter, beautiful handwriting was not just an elegant attainment, it was a marketable skill. In nineteenth-century America, there could be real money in providing examples of virtuosic penwork, both as objects in their own right and as advertisements to potential students. This extraordinary calligraphic portrait of Abraham Lincoln may be the most famous of all such pieces. But look closely, for this is a verbal portrait of Lincoln as well as a visual one. The president’s visage is comprised of the text of the Emancipation Proclamation, the letters and words swelling and thinning to create a convincing portrait of the man. Here, Lincoln literally embodies his greatest achievement: the freeing of the slaves.

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