Daguerreotype of Future First Lady Julia Dent Grant and Sons Made for Captain Ulysses S. Grant 

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Jun 10, 2016 - Jun 11, 2016

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• Lot Description
  Daguerreotype of Future First Lady Julia Dent Grant and Sons Made for Captain Ulysses S. Grant 
  
  Recently discovered sixth plate daguerreotype portrait of Julia Dent Grant with her eldest children, Frederic Dent Grant and Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. taken by unknown St. Louis photographer in late spring or early summer 1854. Clear, crisp image retains original glass, mat, preserver and pressed paper case with intact hinge. Image surfaced at an Ohio estate auction near Columbus in late 2015.
  
  In this portrait, Julia looks directly into the camera attired in a stylish summer dress with black lace gloves and bedecked with a large cameo broach and gold hoop earrings, delicately tinted by the artist. The children also appear in summer clothing, with bare knees and shoulders, as per the custom of the day. Ulysses Junior appears cupid-like while older brother Fred grimaces his dislike for the camera.
  
  Until this image surfaced, the earliest known daguerreotype of Julia Grant was an 1854 portrait of Mrs. Grant and eldest sons located in the Library of Congress, taken some weeks after this image (as seen by young Ulysses’ outgrown hair.) In that portrait the children wear the same clothing with Mrs. Grant, exchanging her evening dress and jewelry for a plainer day dress and striking her characteristic profile pose, in order to hide a lazy left eye. Frontal portraits of Julia Grant are a rarity and for that reason, coupled with family correspondence and memoirs, it is believed that this portrait was taken expressly for her husband, who had not yet returned from military duty in California.
  
  In February 1854 Grant wrote Julia from Fort Humboldt: “I feel again as if I had been separated from you and Fred long enough, and as to Ulys, I have never seen him. I have made up my mind as to what Ulys looks like, and am anxious to see if my presentiment is correct. Does he advance rapidly? Tell me a great deal about him and Fred, and Fred’s pranks with his Grandpa. A month later another letter forewarned Grant’s resignation: I have had only one letter from you in three months, and that had been a long time on the way…. I sometimes get so anxious to see you, and our little boys, that I am almost tempted to resign and trust to Providence, and my own exertions, for a living where I can have you and them with me.”
  
  Grant’s resignation was submitted April 11th; it was accepted on May 1st and the following day he wrote Julia he was taking a “leave of absence” and would be home via the City of New York. Not knowing the exact day of her husband’s arrival, Julia “dressed each day most becomingly, her summer muslins crisped and flounced around her short, trim figure,” recalled her younger sister Emma. “She was now twenty-eight years. She had lost some of her girlish look … but she was still slim and swift in her movements.” In her memoir Julia recalled the happy times after Grant’s arrival in August at the Dent Family home near St. Louis: “How very happy this reunion was! One great boy by his knee, the curly-headed, blue-eyed Cupid on his lap, and his happy, proud wife nestled by his side. We cared for no other happiness.”
  
  The Grants' mutual respect and devotion to each other is a well-known American love story. When self-conscious Julia later suggested she surgically-correct her lazy eye, Grant told her: “Did I not see you and fall in love with you with these same eyes? I like them just as they are, and now, remember, you are not to interfere with them.” Yet Julia was self-conscious about her looks until the confidence born of her role as First Lady largely erased those fears.
  
  The Grants had two more children, a girl named Ellen in 1855 and a boy Jesse in 1858. All the Grant children made their mark on the world – Fred as a major general, Ulysses Jr. and Jesse in business, and Nellie married a British aristocrat as a young woman. Following the financial success of her late husband’s memoirs, Julia was encouraged to pen her own autobiography, completing it a few years before her death in 1902. For various reasons, it remained unpublished for seventy-three years. In its release, new light was shone on her role as familial partner to the 19th Century’s most popular man – General and President Ulysses S. Grant.
  
  Sources: Brand, H.W. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses S. Grant (2012); Grant, Julia D. The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (1975); Lewis, Lloyd. Captain Sam Grant (1950); Ross, Ishbel. The General’s Wife (1958); Library of Congress website. 
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