Cornelia Adele Strong Fassett

Cornelia Adele Strong Fassett (November 9, 1831 – January 4, 1898) was an American painter. She painted portraits of politicians. Her most famous work is her painting of the Electoral Commission of 1877.

Biography Cornelia Adele Strong was born in Owasco, New York, the third of six children of Captain Walker Strong and Sarah Devoe Strong. Cornelia married artist and photographer, Samuel Montague Fassett, in 1851.

The Florida Case Before the Electoral Commission

The Florida Case Before the Electoral Commission is a massive historical painting created by Fassett between 1877 and 1878. It depicts an Electoral Commission's meeting in relation to the disputed U.S. presidential election of 1876.

Fassett was not commissioned to produce the painting of the Electoral Commission’s 1877 meeting, but created it independently. In 1886, a writer for the New York Column, "Gossip of Noted Ladies" mentions that "One of the striking features of the study is a beautiful painting by Mrs. Fassett of Washington representing its interior and Mrs. Lamb seated in a large crimson armchair which throws into capital relief her fine face and handsome figure." Originally the painting was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1878, but later moved to the New York Historical Society, where it remains today.

Other notable works Pastel portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1860), later claimed to be the first portrait Lincoln ever sat for. Now in the collection of Chicago Public Library. Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant - put on show at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition Portrait of Martha J. Lamb (1878), described as "one of her finest portraits". Portrait of Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite - now in the painting collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.