Ehrgott & Forbriger "Salmon P. Chase. Secretary of the Treasury”

Unattributed.  “Salmon P. Chase.  Secretary of the Treasury.”  Cincinnati: Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co., ca. 1862.  Folio, ca. 12 ½ x 9 ½.  Lithograph by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co.  Very good condition.  Rare.  Perhaps in late 1861, but certainly by mid-1862, the Cincinnati lithographic firm of Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. began to issue a series of portraits of Civil War figures: politicians as well as military and naval officers.  These prints, which the firm continued to issue at least as late as 1864, were of a type published by other lithographic firms of the day, for instance Currier & Ives, E.B. & E.C. Kellogg, Gibson & Co., and J.H. Bufford.  While of a familiar type of print, these Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. are quite unlike the prints by other publishers in one salient feature.  As discussed in Milt Kaplan’s “Heads of States,”  (Winterthur Portfolio 6.  Charlottesville, 1970  Pp. 135-150.) prints of different figures share the same, or very similar backgroun