traits associated with Lincoln: Charity, Fortitude, Justice and Patriotism. These, as well as the main work are executed in the simplified, almost art deco manner that typifies Manship's work. The pedestal sits on a granite base with an overall height of . Historical information In 1928 the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company commissioned sculptor Paul Manship to produce a statue of Abraham Lincoln for its headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company's officers wanted "an outstanding creation of art which would be one of the recognized monuments of the world and which, as such, would attract universal admiration" Benjamin Wistar Morris, the architect for Lincoln National's headquarters in Fort Wayne, recommended Manship for the project. Manship intended to depict Lincoln as a youthful dreamer and poet rather than an older frontiersman and railsplitter. His first concept paired Lincoln with his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Manship created four small-scale compositions of Nancy Hanks and Boy Abraham Lincoln, but rejected the mother and son duo in favor of a single figure of Lincoln as a young man. Manship brought a hound dog from Kentucky to his studio in Paris and used it as the model in the Lincoln sculpture. Manship's preliminary sketch was completed and approved in 1929 and he worked on the plaster model in his studios in Paris and New York in 1931. The bronze casting was done at the Compagnie des Bronzes, in Brussels, Belgium, and shipped to the United States, where the statue and four relief medallions were completed in Manship's New York studio during the winter of 1931–32. The sculpture was dedicated in Fort Wayne on 16 September 1932. The plaster model is today kept at the Musée bruxellois des industries et du travail, in Brussels, Belgium, located on the site of the factory of the Compagnie des Bronzes. A picture of the statue is featured on the dust jacket and the inside front cover of Marks of Lincoln on Our Land. Artist Paul Howard Manship (1885–1966), who was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, was an experienced sculptor with an international reputation when he received the commission for the Lincoln sculpture in 1928. Manship familiarized himself with Lincoln's youth by touring the areas where Lincoln lived in Kentucky and Indiana to prepare for the project; there were no photographs taken of Lincoln until he was 37 years of age. Manship also consulted with Lincoln scholars and biographers: