Anyone in Columbus Monday evening will have the rare chance to gaze upon the real face of Abraham Lincoln — or as close as you can get 160 years after his death.
Famed antiques dealer Peter Colasante, whose work takes him across the world but is based in the Washington, D.C. L’Enfant Gallery, is in Columbus this week to celebrate the opening of The Southern Exchange antiques consignment store. With him are some handpicked items from the Civil War era, including a cast of President Abraham Lincoln’s likeness and some surprise items related to President George Washington.
“If I bring things to the South, they know all about the confederacy,” he said. “They should be northern things. … That’s why Lincoln and (Ulysses S.) Grant feature very prominently in what I’m doing for my little talk. … If you talk about one thing it leads to another, and if you get people’s interest they want to know about all these things.”
Starting at 6 p.m. in the Stephen D. Lee Home and Museum, the event will be open to the public. After some initial procedural matters for the Columbus Historical Society to complete, visitors can enjoy light refreshments, ask Colasante questions and examine the items he brought with him.
Eulalie Davis, chairman of the Stephen D. Lee Foundation, which is hosting the event, told The Dispatch Thursday she was looking forward not just to seeing the items but also to hearing from Colasante and learning about his trade.
“He obviously has quite a collection because of his client list,” she said. “It will be intriguing to hear how he collects the items for his gallery, who’s interested in what different historical items he might have, what areas they’re interested in. And just to have someone with such a significant gallery come to Columbus. … It’s pretty rare and it’s very important.”
The cast of Lincoln is a product of his life mask, taken in plaster from his face by sculptor Leonard Volk in 1860 right before Lincoln became president. The civil war apparently aged Lincoln significantly in the years after, but that mask preserved his original appearance with enough detail to see the texture of his skin.
Aside from the Lincoln artifact, Colasante also brought prints of the painting “Daniel Webster Addressing the United States Senate on The Constitution and the Union 1850.” The painting itself, he said, was valuable enough that his insurance company categorically refused to let him drive it here. He also brought a couple unannounced items, though he managed to restrain himself from spoiling them beyond saying they’re related to President Washington.
Peter Colasante
As unique as the items are, Colasante is an attraction all by himself. A consummate storyteller, he’s as likely to launch into a recounting of his own dealings with famous figures like the Kennedys as he is the winding histories of the items he’s collected, though he often manages to do both at the same time.
This visit to Columbus is his first major trip since the pandemic lockdowns and a serious car accident, and he seemed in high spirits during a Saturday interview with The Dispatch at Westeria Place, the home of historian and new Southern Exchange proprietor Billy Cox.
In between jokes about former popes, trivia about why Columbus was spared during the Civil War and reflections on what about art and historical items moves people, Colasante said he was glad to be back on the road and had “learned more in 24 hours than I knew my entire life about Mississippi and especially this town.”
“I’ve spent my career trying to find things that you won’t see anywhere else,” he said. “Not in museums, not in collections. I’m lucky at being a finder, and I’ve got friends who are brilliant finders. They’ve just got this sixth sense. Some of these things have been found in thrift shops, some in museums, in the Smithsonian and they got rid of them not knowing what they had.”
Rarity alone doesn’t seem to be enough to attract his attention. His stories, as much as they go into detail about chains of unlikely events or near-superhuman feats from Lincoln or tracking down the last artist who knows a particular technique, always find their focus back on the people involved and what these items mean to them. He said the Lincoln cast often has a profound effect on those familiar with its past.
“People who are students of history, especially American history and Lincoln, are flabbergasted. Just flabbergasted,” he said. “I recorded a show with (television journalist) Armstrong Williams, and when I handed it to him he almost couldn’t hold it he was so overcome with emotion. … He held this thing and he says, ‘He set us free. He set us free.’ … It’s that kind of effect.”
The reason Colasante is here in Columbus is the opening of The Southern Exchange, a new antiques consignment store starting up at 418 Main Street. It allowed some select guests in for the first time Saturday and will be open to the general public starting Tuesday.
The store has a wide array of items including furniture, paintings, home decor, sculptures, rugs, silverware and plates, binoculars and antique coin exchangers. It’s also targeting a more affordable part of the market than many antiques shops, with some of the smallest finds starting at roughly $15. Cox said Saturday that he wants anybody who walks in the door to be able to find something to take home.
“We’re selling very fine antiques, and we know what our demographics are,” he said. “We want to have something that almost anybody can afford, we have things from $29 to $10,000. We want everybody to feel like they’re welcome there, and we don’t want anybody to say, ‘I can’t buy anything at that store.’”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
