In early 1929, Bloom made news when he announced that he had acquired a previously unknown oil portrait of former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of slain president Abraham Lincoln. Bloom claimed shortly before President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Mary Lincoln commissioned painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter (who had lived at the White House for six months during Lincoln's presidency and had previously painted "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln") to paint a portrait of her as gift to her husband. After the President's death, Bloom claimed that Mary Lincoln was unable to pay Carpenter for the painting and asked him to destroy it. According to Bloom, Carpenter kept the painting and eventually sold it to a wealthy Philadelphia shipbuilder named Jacob G. Neafie who was a great fan of President Lincoln's. After Neafie died, Bloom said that Neafie's daughter inherited the portrait who then gave it to Bloom's sister Susan as gift for taking care of her mother, Anna "Annie" Neafie, who died in 1860. Upon Susan's death in 1910, Bloom inherited her art collection which he said included the portrait of Mary Lincoln.