Lot 21: Edward Hicks 1780-1849 , Peaceable Kingdom of the Banner oil on canvas

painted 1829-1830 The painting is in its original cherry-veneered frame with corner blocks, handlettered by the artist. oil on canvas

measurements 17 1/2 in. by 23 1/4 in. alternate measurements 44.5 cm by 59.1 cm

Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, American Naive and Folk Art of the Nineteenth Century, January 16 - February 28, 1974; color cover, The Kennedy Quarterly, Volume XIII, Number One, January 1974

Frederic Newlin Price, Edward Hicks, 1780-1849, a pamplet published by the Benjamin West Society, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, 1945, page 27, Number 64

The artist, to his daughter Sarah B. Hicks Perry, to her daughter Tacie Perry Willets, to her daughter Mabel Willets Abendroth, to her daughter Cordelia Abendroth FlanaganKennedy Galleries, Inc., New York

"Peaceable Kingdoms with Quakers Bearing Banners of this kind may have been influenced by the historic separation between Friends. At least five examples are known which appear to have been painted between 1827 and 1835; one of the group is dated 1832. They represent the earliest departure that Hicks made from the engraving on which he depended. A leopard couchant with a long snake-like tail, which becomes a trademark in later Kingdoms, makes its first appearance in this series. The cockatrice's den, brooding and mysterious below the gathered creatures in paintings from Hick's later periods, is barely suggested here. Despite the perspective used in portraying the band of Quakers on the left, these early paintings are enclosed and two-dimensional in appearance. The symbolism of the Quakers bearing a streamer from Calvary, or from Pendle Hill, is suggested in a passage from a long poem written by Hicks himself: Sweet peace, the Saviour's legacy of love
Descended on them from the Heaven above.
Then mercy smiled and justice sat surrene,
While Heavenly glory filled the space between.
High on the mount, conspicuous to the sight,
Friends stood alone, environed round the light.
Then let them stand there, let the people know
They cannot mingle with the world below." (Excerpted from Edward Hicks/1780-1849/A Special Exhibition Devoted to His Life and Work, introduction and chronology by Alice Ford, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection, Williamsburg, Virginia, September 30 - October 30, 1960, page 12) "Here Penn's Treaty is replaced by a pyramid of plain-coated Friends, and around them twines a banner inscribed, 'Behold I bring glad tidings of great joy. Peace on earth and good will to men.' Far above them on the hilltop shine thirteen rays of light." "But it was Mary C. Black who first perceived a connection between these six Kingdoms and the Separation which divided Orthodox and Hicksite Friends in 1827, a discovery confirmed by Frederick Tolles when he identified the figure of Elias Hicks in the front row of each of the six canvases: the pose was clearly recognizable from a silhouette circulated in 1830, the year of the Quaker leader's death. Tolles also detected, at the apex of the pyramid, the three pathfinders of early Quakerism: Fox preaching, Penn with arms characteristically outstretched, and Barclay the apologist with book in hand - a trio to which the artist often refers in his Memoirs." "This interpretation is certainly consistent with the official Hicksite position, which attributed the source of the conflict to the inquisitional methods of orthodoxy rather than to doctrinal attitudes: 'Whatever the peculiar view of the Orthodox brethren may be on particular doctrinal subjects, no exception has been taken against them on this account. The point at issue was the assumption and exercise of undue power.' Or, to quote the artist's own typically anti-British statement, 'neither Elias Hicks nor his doctrine had anything to do with our Quaker revolution in Pennsylvania, which originated in a contest between the republicanism of William Penn, planted in America and watered and cherished by free institutions of our country, and the aristocracy of the Yearly Meeting of London, under the influence of the British hierarchy. We can well believe that the painter's conscious intent in composing Kingdoms with Quakers Bearing Banners was to portray the progress of religious liberty. But, as a practical matter of fact, the issues of religious freedom and doctrine were inseparable. And it proved as impossible to keep Elias Hicks out of the paintings as out of the controversy itself. Not only does the venerable Quaker appear in the front row of all these canvases, but in two cases his doctrine is spelled out verbally. 'Mind the light within', reads the banner." (Excerpted from Eleanore Price Mather, "A Quaker Icon: The Inner Kingdom of Edward Hicks," The Art Quarterly, Volume XXXVI, Numbers 1/2, Spring/Summer 1973, pages 88 & 89)