Skip to main content

Edward Hicks Painting the Peaceable Kingdom

Edward Hicks Painting the Peaceable Kingdom
Artist
Thomas Hicks, 18 Oct 1823 - 8 Oct 1890
Sitter
Edward Hicks, 4 Apr 1780 - 23 Aug 1849
Date
1839
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Stretcher: 91.4 x 73.7 x 3.8cm (36 x 29 x 1 1/2")
Frame: 114.3 x 96.5 x 7.6cm (45 x 38 x 3")
Topic
Printed Material\Book
Costume\Dress Accessory\Eyeglasses
Interior\Studio\Art
Art implements\Palette
Art implements\Paintbrush
Art implements\Canvas
Art implements\Easel
Edward Hicks: Male
Edward Hicks: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter\Landscape painter
Edward Hicks: Visual Arts\Art instructor
Edward Hicks: Visual Arts\Artist\Religious artist
Edward Hicks: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter\History painter
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.88.53
Exhibition Label
Born Attleboro, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Edward Hicks was a Quaker minister who supplemented his income through sign and coach painting. In middle age, he began making more ambitious pictures, expressing his sense of patriotism through depictions of significant events in American history and his spiritual beliefs through imaginative scenes of paradise on earth. Here, his cousin Thomas Hicks portrays him at work on one of the hundred or so versions of “The Peaceable Kingdom” that he painted between 1820 and the night before his death in 1849. The pacifist theme is inspired by the prophecy in the Old Testament’s book of Isaiah: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.”
A self-taught artist, Hicks sold, bartered, or gave away his paintings to neighbors in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His works were little known until the 1930s; they have since become recognizable icons featured in major museums.
Nacido en Attleboro, Bucks County, Pensilvania
El ministro cuáquero Edward Hicks complementaba sus ingresos pintando letreros y carruajes. En su madurez comenzó a crear pinturas más ambiciosas, plasmando su sentido de patriotismo con imágenes de eventos importantes en la historia de EE.UU. y sus creencias espirituales con escenas imaginativas de un paraíso terrenal. Aquí, su primo Thomas Hicks lo muestra trabajando en una de las casi 100 versiones de “El reino pacífico” que pintó entre 1820 y la víspera de su muerte en 1849. El tema pacifista proviene de una profecía del Libro de Isaías, en el Antiguo Testamento: “El lobo vivirá con el cordero, el leopardo se echará con el cabrito”.
Artista autodidacto, Hicks vendía, intercambiaba o regalaba sus pinturas entre sus vecinos de Bucks County, Pensilvania. Poco conocidas hasta la década de 1930, sus obras se han convertido en íconos célebres y figuran en museos importantes.
Provenance
(Hirschl & Adler, New York); purchased 1988 NPG
The provenance given by Hirschl & Adler: The Artist; his cousin, Edward Hicks, by 1839; his daughter, Susan Hicks Carle; her son, John J Carle; his son, Edward Hicks Carle, Charlottesville, Va.; her son, John J. Carle, II, Keswick, Va. until 1987
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Exhibition
Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900
On View
NPG, East Gallery 132