Middleton’s National Oil Portraits

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Middleton’s National Oil Portraits

The fifth in the series of articles by Chris W Lane about Cincinnati lithographs.  This article examines the history of E.C. Middleton’s important series of chromolithographic portraits of Americans, the so-called “National Oil Portraits.”  These oval portraits were issued between 1861 and 1872 and featured at least seventeen different portraits of figures ranging from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln.  The article considers all known images from this series as well as those by competitors who issued similar prints.