 The conservators that worked on the initial restoration reasoned that the added paint was likely the result of "heavy handed" retouches by other conservators or by Francis Bicknell Carpenter who was known to "fiddle with" his finished paintings.The lack of resemblance to the woman in the portrait to the real Mary Lincoln was rationalized as "artistic idealization".For the next 32 years, the portrait hung at the Illinois Executive Mansion in Springfield, Illinois.