Peace on Earth in this holiday season! The Quaker minister Edward Hicks is best known today for his
Peace on Earth in this holiday season! The Quaker minister Edward Hicks is best known today for his many versions of The Peaceable Kingdom. From about 1820 to 1849, Hicks painted approximately sixty versions, based on verses from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 11: 6-9) had particular significance and value for pacifist Quakers:The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den.The Brooklyn Museum’s version includes all of the animals who, according to the scripture, had surrendered their wild natures and appetites to an inner spirituality. He placed the paired animals in a ring around the straw-eating lion and ox: (counterclockwise) the young of the bear and cow, the weaned child and the suckling child, the leopard and the kid, the bear and the cow, the lamb and the wolf, and finally, the formerly central group of the little child leading the lion, the fatling, and the calf. At the left, Hicks included a vignette of “William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” in recognition of his own allegiance to the earliest Quaker founders in America.Posted by Kim OrcuttEdward Hicks (American, 1780-1849). The Peaceable Kingdom, ca. 1833-1834. Oil on canvas, 17 7/16 x 23 9/16 in. (44.3 x 59.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 40.340 -- source link
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