Browse

Accession #	40.340
Artist	Edward Hicks
Title	The Peaceable Kingdom
Date	ca. 1833-1834
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	17 7/16 x 23 9/16 in. (44.3 x 59.8 cm) frame: 23 1/4 x 29 1/4 x 1 3/8 in. (59.1 x 74.3 x 3.5 cm)
Signed	Unsigned
Credit Line	Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Location	American Identities: Colony to Nation / Inventing American Landscape

Curatorial Remarks: In this Edenic scene inspired by a passage from the Book of Isaiah, Edward Hicks visualized the peaceful coexistence of God’s creatures, depicting animals and children in the right foreground along with a vignette in the background of William Penn’s treaty with the Lenape. Hicks idealized the encounter between British colonists and Indigenous people, creating fictions of harmony. Ultimately, the Lenape were forced out of Pennsylvania owing to fraudulent land deals perpetrated by Penn’s sons.