Painting a Nation

Penn’s Treaty with the Indians 1840-45 Edward Hicks

Trained in Bucks County, Pennsylvania as a coach, sign, and ornamental painter, the artist Edward Hicks (17801849) secured his greatest recognition in his own lifetime as a Quaker minister and member of the Society of Friends, rather than for his easel paintings, most notably scenes which included the Peaceable Kingdom, the Declaration of Independence, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and as evident in this composition, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians. Although he had difficulty reconciling his professional life with his Quaker religion which forbade frivolous arts, Hicks’ need for economic stability led him to balance his ministry with work as an ornamental painter. Beginning in the 1820s, his easel paintings however, which he rarely sold but instead gave freely as gifts to relatives and good friends, provided the artist with an outlet to express visually doctrinal beliefs that he shared with recipients. Based upon a print by the British engraver John Hall (1739-1797), after an original (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) by the acclaimed Anglo-American artist Benjamin West (1738-1820), this painting is one of several depicting this subject that Hicks executed between 1830 and the late 1840s. In the center of the composition with arms extended in a gesture of acceptance, Quaker William Penn and his associates have just traveled the Delaware River to meet under a majestic elm tree with the chiefs of the neighboring Indian tribes. This potentially volatile gathering culminated in a signed treaty that established a peaceful co-existence among the newly founded Pennsylvania Colony and native populations. Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery, the dealer who sold this painting to Mrs. Webb in 1953, acquired it from descendants of the original owner Dr. David Hutchinson. The physician was the grandson of David and Elizabeth Twining, a well-to-do Quaker couple who had taken in the artist as a child when his father was unable to care for him.

24

LOREM IPSUM Penn’s Treaty with the Indians ca. 1840-1845 Attributed to Edward Hicks (1780-1849) Media & Support: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 25 x 30 ½” (unframed) Credit line & Accession number: Purchased from Edith Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY, 1953, 27.1.6-1; 1953-1179 Inscriptions/marks: in legend at bottom, “PENNS Treaty with the INDIANS, made 1681 with/out an Oath, and never broken. The foundation of Religious and Civil Liberty, in the U.S. of America.”

FURTHER READING Carolyn J. Weekley, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999). Eleanore Price Mather and Dorothy Canning Miller, Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Paintings (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1983). David Tatham, “Edward Hicks, Elias Hicks, and John Comly: Perspectives on the Peaceable Kingdom Theme,” American Art Journal XIII (1981), 36-50.

THE LA ND

25

Ester Amelia and Marcella Eusebia White 1843 Zedekiah Belknap Graduating in 1807 from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where he pursued divinity studies, the artist Zedekiah Belknap (1781-1858) traveled throughout Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire painting portraits of local residents. In about 1836, prosperous North Springfield, Vermont farmer and businessman John White, Jr. and his wife Eusebia commissioned him to paint this charming double portrait of the couple’s two young daughters Marcella Eusebia (1835-1863), and Amelia Esther (1833-1915). Wearing sheer, long white dresses with cap sleeves and white beaded necklaces, the girls sit facing each other on an EmpireRevival sofa upholstered in black horsehair fabric held in place with brass tacks, a compositional arrangement often found in the artist’s work.

LOR EM IPSUM

A basket of fruit filled with peaches, pears, and grapes rests uneasily between them, a symbol of their status as girls, while Amelia, the older daughter, holds a book in her hand, suggesting that she will one day help to instruct and educate her own family. The girls’ facial features, with their rounded noses, flat ears with d-shaped contours, and their piercing gazes, as well as their awkwardly shaped hands are hallmarks of Belknap’s portrait work. The beautifully executed lace pattern visible on their ruffled collars, sleeves and bodices lend a decorative quality to this charming painting. Although both girls grew up to marry, Marcella died prematurely of heart disease at the age of twenty-seven, just one year after she married George Dresser, a local physician. Amelia married Amos P. Fairbanks, a local farmer, by whom she had three children. She died in Ohio in 1915, having moved west to live in her daughter’s household according to the federal census.

FURTHER R EADING

36

Esther Amelia and Marcella Eusebia White, ca. 1836 Attributed to Zedekiah Belknap (1781-1858) Media & Support: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 30 1/2 x 35 1/2” Credit line & Accession number: Given by Mrs. Floyd Altorfer, descendant of the sitters, 1984, 27.1.1-204; 1984.25.1 Inscriptions/marks: none.

Elizabeth Mankin, “Zedekiah Belknap,” Antiques CX (November 1976):1056-1066. Paul S. D’Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emans, Folk Art’s Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association (Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987).

THE PEOPLE

37

Paddle Steamboat Metamora 1859 James Bard

From his residence in lower Manhattan, the artist James Bard (1815-1897), working initially with his twin brother John (1815-1856), met the demand for painted ship portraits within a burgeoning steamboat industry by completing commissions for nearly four thousand paintings from engine builders, ship captains, merchants, and other maritime entrepreneurs. Created to be hung in commercial rather than domestic settings, these canvases were valued for their highly accurate representations of a vessel’s appearance and as icons of beauty, speed, national achievement, and successful business acumen. The paddle wheel steamer Metamora, painted by the artist at least three times, was built in 1846 by Lawrence and Sneden of New York, and as noted in the painting’s bottom border, by 1859 was under the command of Captain John F. Tallman. For nearly forty years, this wooden passenger vessel made excursions along the Hudson River between New York and Albany, to Rockaway Beach, and from the East River to Coney Island. During the 1880s, it served as a towboat along the Upper Hudson River. Rendered in profile, facing portside so the flag could be read easily, the Metamora probably was named for the tragic figure in the dramatic play about the death of King Phillip entitled “Metamora, the Last of the Wampanogues.” Written in 1829, this theatrical was performed on the New York City stage for nearly sixty years and featured as its primary lead the Shakespearian actor Edwin Forrest. Visibly evident throughout the vessel, the Indian figure of Metamora is portrayed with a bow and arrow in the flags flying fore and aft, in the shield painted on the paddle wheel, in bust-length on the vessel’s bow and in profile standing watch on the pilot house. In addition to this canvas and eight other Bard paintings depicting side wheelers, in 1955 Mrs. Webb acquired the Ticonderoga, a once functioning, 220-foot long steamboat that the collector installed on the museum’s grounds, creating a noteworthy opportunity for visitors to experience and celebrate a form of commercial transportation that was rapidly disappearing from the American landscape.

60

LOR EM IPSUM Paddle Steamboat Metamora, 1859 James Bard (1815-1897) Media & Support: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 34 1/8 x 54 1/8” (unframed) Credit line & Accession number: Purchased from Harry Shaw Newman, Old Print Shop, New York, NY, 1951, 27.1.4-2; 1951-391.40 Inscriptions/marks: lower left, “STEAMBOAT Metamora OF. NEW YORK AND. ALBANY STEAMBOAT PASSENGER LINE. John F Tallman Commander.”; lower right, “PICTURE DRAWN & PAINTED. BY. JAMES BARD./162 PERRY ST. NY. 1859.”

FURTHER R EADING Harold S. Sniffen and Alexander Crosby Brown, James and John Bard, Painters of Steamboat Portraits (Newport News, VA: Mariners’ Museum, 1949). A.J. Peluso, Jr., J. & J. Bard, Picture Painters (New York: Hudson River Press, 1977). Mariners’ Museum and Anthony J. Peluso, Jr., The Bard Brothers: Painting American Under Steam and Sail (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1997).

MARINE PAINTING

61

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook