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The leopard with the harmless kid laid down,
And not one savage beast was seen to frown,
The lion with the fatling on did move,
A little child was leading them in love,
The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in peace,
His grim carnivrous nature there did ceace,
When the great PENN his famous treaty made,
With indian chiefs beneath the elm- trees shade.
Hicks adapted this verse to include a reference to William Penn, whose humane treatment of Native Americans endeared him to generations of Quakers. A vignette of Penn's treaty with the Indians, copied from Benjamin West's famous painting, appears in the background as it does in many of Hicks's Peaceable Kingdoms.
Edward Hicks was born into a Bucks County, Pennsylvania Anglican family with Tory leanings. After his mother’s death and father’s forced seclusion during the Revolution, he was taken in and raised by a Quaker family. In his teens, Hicks apprenticed to a coachmaker and learned the craft of decorative painting. He was accepted into the Society of Friends and became highly regarded as a minister. As Quaker ministers were not compensated for their work, Hicks continued to paint to earn income.
In about 1820 he developed his peaceable kingdom formula, which he painted dozens of times. The inspiration for this picture came from an engraving by Richard Westall that illustrated a Bible verse from Isaiah:
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
In the background, Hicks incorporated a vignette of William Penn’s treaty with the Indians, derived from a 1771-1772 painting by Benjamin West, to further symbolize the Quaker values of peace and harmony. The scene is surrounded by the block-lettered verse paraphrased from Isaiah, painted in a manner reminiscent of Hicks’s training as a sign painter.
Exhibition History“The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks,” Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, VA, June 4, 2000 – September 4, 2000.
“Folk Art Masters,” The Mennello Museum of American Folk Art, Orlando, FL, September 19, 2001 – January 6, 2002.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York,” The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11, 2004 – April 16, 2004.
“Art of the Everman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyAlice Ford, Edward Hicks: Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. cover illustration, opposite 80, 140, ill.
Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Folk Art’s Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association, (Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987).
Artist
Edward Hicks
(1780 - 1849)
Peaceable Kingdom
Date1825-1830
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 30 1/4 × 35 1/2 in. (76.8 × 90.2 cm)
Object numberN0037.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextThe Peaceable Kingdom paintings by Edward Hicks, of which sixty-two are known to exist, are among the most widely recognized icons of American folk art today. Hicks was raised in a Quaker household and became a highly respected Quaker minister, and his Peaceable Kingdoms strongly reflect his religious values and beliefs. This version of Hicks's Peaceable Kingdom includes the block-lettered verse from Isaiah 11:6-9.The leopard with the harmless kid laid down,
And not one savage beast was seen to frown,
The lion with the fatling on did move,
A little child was leading them in love,
The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in peace,
His grim carnivrous nature there did ceace,
When the great PENN his famous treaty made,
With indian chiefs beneath the elm- trees shade.
Hicks adapted this verse to include a reference to William Penn, whose humane treatment of Native Americans endeared him to generations of Quakers. A vignette of Penn's treaty with the Indians, copied from Benjamin West's famous painting, appears in the background as it does in many of Hicks's Peaceable Kingdoms.
Edward Hicks was born into a Bucks County, Pennsylvania Anglican family with Tory leanings. After his mother’s death and father’s forced seclusion during the Revolution, he was taken in and raised by a Quaker family. In his teens, Hicks apprenticed to a coachmaker and learned the craft of decorative painting. He was accepted into the Society of Friends and became highly regarded as a minister. As Quaker ministers were not compensated for their work, Hicks continued to paint to earn income.
In about 1820 he developed his peaceable kingdom formula, which he painted dozens of times. The inspiration for this picture came from an engraving by Richard Westall that illustrated a Bible verse from Isaiah:
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
In the background, Hicks incorporated a vignette of William Penn’s treaty with the Indians, derived from a 1771-1772 painting by Benjamin West, to further symbolize the Quaker values of peace and harmony. The scene is surrounded by the block-lettered verse paraphrased from Isaiah, painted in a manner reminiscent of Hicks’s training as a sign painter.
Exhibition History“The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks,” Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, VA, June 4, 2000 – September 4, 2000.
“Folk Art Masters,” The Mennello Museum of American Folk Art, Orlando, FL, September 19, 2001 – January 6, 2002.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York,” The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11, 2004 – April 16, 2004.
“Art of the Everman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyAlice Ford, Edward Hicks: Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. cover illustration, opposite 80, 140, ill.
Paul S. D’Ambrosio, Folk Art’s Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association, (Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987).
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