The ornate brass grip of this pistol features a female figure representing Christianity and Justice. John Quincy Adams Ward created the original model of the grip for a pair of pistols presented by President Abraham Lincoln to the governor of Adrianople (present-day Edirne, Turkey) in 1864. The grip of the pistol displayed here was probably cast from the same mold shortly after that. Ward was relatively unknown at the time, but soon became one of America's most celebrated sculptors.

Reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art