Mourning CDV commemorating the martyrdom of President Abraham Lincoln, ca. May, 1865. The face of the card features a prominent, integrated advertisement block across the lower margin reading: "S.M. Fassett." The verso displays a backmark for "S.M. Fassett’s New Gallery, 114 & 116 South Clark St., Chicago."

A haunting artifact of Victorian mourning typography produced in the immediate wake of the Lincoln assassination. The graphic composition centers on a tiny, oval-vignette photographic insert capturing the youthful, beard-free likeness of Abraham Lincoln, famously taken by Chicago photographer Samuel M. Fassett on 4 October1859 - a portrait that Lincoln himself later remarked was one of his personal favorites. 

Encircling this central image is a bold, stylized typographical design configured in a continuous wheel pattern. The hand-lettered inscription bears a profound, rhetorical declaration of national resolve: Liberty Is Immortal, Though Its Champion Be Slain. Following the tragedy at Ford's Theatre, metropolitan galleries scrambled to design keepsakes that combined authentic likenesses of the president with powerful expressions of public grief. Fassett skillfully integrated his own celebrated 1859 campaign negative into this specialized mourning placard, printing his own name in high-contrast block lettering across the lower baseline to serve as both an artistic signature and marketing tool. 

Fassett's creation is an exceptionally elusive variant of Lincoln mourning CDVs, particularly considering the inclusion of Fassett's own "from life" portrait of the slain President. This carte would be a fine addition to even the most advanced Lincoln collections.