Ulysses Simpson Grant

Portrait of Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885), Union General during the American Civil War and 18th President of the United States. The portrait is after a photograph by Frederick Gutekunst. President Grant is dressed in uniform and looks directly at the viewer. He is striking a Napoleonic pose appropriate for a victorious military figure, with his left hand tucked into his waistcoat and his right hand in his pocket. The artist embellished the background with a marble column draped with a red curtain. In the original photograph, taken shortly after President Abraham Lincoln’s death in 1865, President Grant wears a mourning ribbon on his left arm. In later prints of the same photographic image, the mourning ribbon was removed.