The firm of Wynkoop & Company of Philadelphia is something I get mail about at least once or twice a year. About every six months or so, one of their portraits of Abraham Lincoln goes up for sale on Ebay and people write to find out who these folks were and whether or not the portrait is valuable or not.

    I'm not an art appraiser so I'm not really in a position to answer the last question with any authority, but I can tell you that on Ebay it generally goes for a modest price. You won't have to be rich as Croesus to own one of these portraits.

    What I can tell you about, however, is who Wynkoop & Company probably were.

    Recently, I received an email from someone wanting to know something about the background of one of Wynkoop & Co.'s paintings. They wrote that the "nature of the painting and the time frame ... lead me to believe that it could be from the firm of Wynkoop and Hallenbeck, (of Fulton Street in New York City-chw). Before forming this joint venture, was he ever registered as Wynkoop and Company? This would be around 1860 from [a] dating of [the] portrait printed by Wynkoop and Company and commissioned by Goff and Brothers of Albany, or New York, N.Y."

    The fact that the portrait was commissioned by a New York firm might lead you to believe that the portrait was printed in New York as well, but as you can see from the back of the Lincoln portrait above, Wynkoop & Company were a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firm.

    Even if this were not so, there were any number of other Wynkoops in the New York/Pennsylvania area in the mid to late 1800s who earned their living as printers and even as photographers; Cornelius De Witt Wynkoop, the firm of Wynkoop and Sherwood, P. S. Wynkoop, Otto Wynkoop and a host of others besides Matthew Bennett Wynkoop of Wynkoop and Hallenbeck, spring to mind right away. With the exception of George H. Wynkoop, who was a photographer on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia from 1864-1867 or 8, most of the other firms specialized in printing books, menus, broadsides, circulars, posters, railway passes and even employee ID's. Only one printer, to my knowledge, specialized in lithography, the process of printing images from a plane surface, such as a smooth stone or a metal plate. (The image to be printed is ink-receptive and the blank area ink-repellent.) This printer was John J. Wynkoop of Philadelphia.

    John J. Wynkoop of Philadelphia, our lithographer, made his first appearance in McElroy's Philadelphia City and Business Directory for 1859, on page 830. Here he was listed as a lithographer at 1226 Austin Street. By 1863 he had moved to 514 Minor Street. He dropped out of the City Directories for several years before finally reappearing in 1867, when he was living at 47 N. 38th St. More importantly, however, is the fact that he was listed as a Painter!

    By 1869 he was doing business at 154 S. 4th St. He was still living at 47 N. 38th St. in West Philadelphia, but by 1872 he had moved next door, to 48 N. 38th St., where he stayed until at least 1880, (which is the last consecutive Philadelphia City Directory I have information for.)

    In 1873 he seems to have employed one of his sons, J. Frank Wynkoop, also of 48 N. 38th St. as a lithographer in his shop. The following year, in 1874, he took on another son as a clerk in his shop for a couple of years. This was Neal Wynkoop, also of 48 N. 38th St. This was probably when John J. Wynkoop began to call his business Wynkoop & Co., although it's not listed as such in the City Directories.

    In 1875 Cornelius ("Neal") Wynkoop had moved on and was working as a clerk at 16th S. Front St., and not at his father's place of business. Around 1879 another lithographer, by the name of Otto Wynkoop, place of business unknown, went to work in Philadelphia. Whether this was another of John J. Wynkoop's sons or not, I really can't say.

    The firm that commissioned the canvasses, Goff and Brother, are listed as Agents on the piece, and apparently vanished around 1878, which fits in perfectly with the known dates for John J. Wynkoop's business enterprise. Incidentally, it appears that the the print has been pasted to the canvas, which would lend further credence to the idea that the portrait is a lithograph.

    Furthermore, it now seems likely that the artist who painted the portrait was John Johnson Wynkoop himself, most likely while Lincoln was alive, since the portrait of Lincoln is a relatively youthful one and not the careworn face from 1865 we're so used to seeing.

    John is not listed in the Philadelphia City Directory for 1890, however there is a listing in the New York City Directory for 1890 for a John J. Wynkoop:

    Wynkoop John J. ink, 154 Nassau, h 200 E. 102d

    Could this be the same man, returned to the state of his birth?

    Richard Wynkoop, in the 1904 edition of the Wynkoop Genealogy in the United States of America, has this to say about John on pages 165-166:

    854. John Johnson Wynkoop, (Cornelius 486, Derick C. 258, Col. Cornelius D. 94, Dirrick 13, Maj. Johannes 2, Cornelius 1,) born February 1, 1830, Hurley, N. Y.: married, October 29, 1850, Caroline Matilda Du Bois, of New York City, daughter of Elisha and Sarah (Pinckney) Du Bois. John was a photographer, in Philadelphia.
    Children of John J. and Caroline M. Wynkoop:
1405. John Franklin: b. Aug. 9, 1851, New York City.
1406. Caroline Maud: b. Nov. 13, 1853.
1407. Cornelius Du Bois: b. Oct. 4, 1856.

    John Franklin Wynkoop later became a playwrite and actor and married an actress named Helen Truman, who was onstage at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. A search in the Newspaper Articles section of this website will reveal a number of articles regarding her memories of this event.

    Caroline Maud later moved to Los Angeles, California, probably at John Franklin's invitation, where she later died.

    All my best,

    Chris