Hi Lori,

Thank you for contacting Mearto with your appraisal inquiry.

A painter, and etcher of landscapes, figures, cityscapes and animals and book illustrator, Josef Pierre Nuyttens (1885-1960) was a native of Belgium, where he studied at the Antwerp Royal Academy. He continued his art education in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. By 1905, he was exhibiting his work in Belgium. "By the end of the First World War (1918), he had emerged as one of Belgium's leading artists and received the bronze medal from the Queen of Belgium as well as the Chevalier of the Order of Leoopold II."

In the mid 1920s, Nuyttens moved to the United States, first living in New York and then settling in Chicago, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1911 and 1912, before immigrating to America, he illustrated four books by Oz book author L. Frank Baum: The Flying Girl and its sequel, The Flying Girl and Her Chum, Phoebe Daring, and Annabel, second edition. Nuyttens also illustrated Kenny by Leona Dalrymple.

His mediums were oil, watercolor, pastel and etching. Many of his works were destroyed in Chicago in a house fire in which he lost his life in 1960.

Nuyttens made several portraits and engravings of Abraham Lincoln and some Lincoln prints derive from photographic sources, rather than being inventions from imagination. One important version is based on the famous photograph taken by Alexander Gardner on November 8, 1863; you have one of these.

Other prints from this edition of 250 have sold at auction recently for prices ranging from $50-75.

Based on the photos and information provided, and subject to examination, this is:

Josef Pierre Nuyttens (Belgian-American, 1885-1960)
Abraham Lincoln, after Alexander Gardner's 1863 photograph
drypoint etching on paper
numbered 70/250
Sheet: 20 by 14 inches
CONDITION: not examined in person; some toning and light-strike visible
PROVENANCE: inherited
$ 50-75*
*represents a fair-market value for auction purposes; retail or asking price may vary.

Please let us know if you have additional items to appraise, or questions/concerns, and thank you again for using Mearto.
~ Delia