Presidential & American Icons

The Presidential and American Icons collection represents the foremost private assemblage of presidential memorabilia and nationally significant artifacts ever gathered by a single dealer. Over a half century of building great collections for great collectors and museums, Gary Hendershott has handled Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum portrait of George Washington, a wine cooler from the first White House, portraits by Charles Wilson Peale and his son Rembrandt Peale, Abraham Lincoln's White House china and crystal service, and works by Emanuel Leutze — the painter of Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Beyond the presidency, this collection extends to artifacts of broader American significance: Tecumseh's war club with its Brock provenance documentation, multiple Gatling guns spanning the 1871 through 1883 models, Edward Henry Potthast's impressionist beach scenes, Paul Sormani's monumental gilt furniture from 1860s Paris, and Dennis Malone Carter's 1865 Lincoln paintings. Gary's eye for historically resonant objects has placed him at the center of American art and material culture for decades.

While many of these landmark pieces have been placed with leading institutions and discerning private collectors worldwide, their documentation and significance are preserved here as a record of what is possible at the highest level of American historical collecting.