A marble bust of Abraham Lincoln that has gazed down a main hallway of the Vermont Statehouse for a century could be due for some touching up.
Civil War historian Howard Coffin says it’s about time, describing the Lincoln bust as "discolored, dirty and in desperate need of cleaning."
Coffin got a friendly hearing from the Senate Institutions Committee when he asked for more than $11,000 to have the work done by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center of Williamstown, Mass.
The bust is the work of sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead. His widow gave it to the state in 1911.