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Washington at the Delaware inscribed Washington Crossed here/Christmas-eve. 1776, aided by Genls. Sullivan, Greene, lord Sterling Mercer & St. Clair across the bottom oil on canvas 321/4x 313/4in. PROVENANCE Alexander Nelson's Tavern, New Jersey Macy's, New York Robert Friedenberg, New York Hary Shaw Newman, New York, 1946 George G. Frelinghysen Morristown, New Jersey Mr. and Mrs. Bertram K. Little, Brookline Massachusetts Childs Gallery, Boston Sotheby's, New York, 3 December 1997, lot 82 LITERATURE Frederick Newlin Price, Edward Hicks 1780-1849, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 1945, p.26 Art Digest, New York, February 1, 1946, p. 2, illustrated The Magazine Antiques, New York, February 1946, p. 97, illustrated Life Magazine, New York, July 1950, p. 46, illustrated in color Alice Ford, Edward Hicks: Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom, Philadelphia, 1952, p. xiii, no. 8, p. 142, illustrated Mary Black and Jean Lipman, American Folk Painting, New York, 1956, pp. 159, 164, figure 146 I History of the United States. The Making of a Nation, 1972, p. 68, illustrated Richard M. Ketchum, ed., The American Heritage Book of the Revolution, New York, 1971, p. 203, illustrated in color Eleanor Prince Mather and Dorthy Canning Miller, Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Paintings, Newark, New Jersey, 1983, no. 62 pp. 155-156, illustrated EXHIBITION Macy Galleries, New York, An Exhibition in the Honor of the Birth of George Washington, February 1932, no. 5, illustrated on the cover (captioned as by Benjamin Hicks of Newton) Springfield Massachusetts Springfield Museum of Art, A Century of American Landscape Painting 1800-1800, n.d., no. 10 Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, Owned in New Jersey: Paintings and Decorative Arts, October-December 1946, no. 4 Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland, Amerikanisch Malerei. Peintres Naifs vom 17. Jarhundert bis heute, (organized by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Information Service), City of Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England, October-November 1954, no. 25, p. 15 American Primitive Paintings, May 1955, no.29 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Three Self-Taught Pennsylvania Artists: Hicks, Kane, Pippin, October 1966-February 1967, no. 11, illustrated The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection, Williamsburg, Virginia, Land and Seascape as Observed by the Folk Artists. An Exhibition from the Collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, January-May 1969, no. 23, p. 17, illustrated Galerie St. Etienne, New York, The Folk Art Tradition, November 1981-January 1982, no. 25 Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, American Masters of the 19th and 20th Centuries, March-April 1982, no. 15 NOTES Edward Hicks, one of America's most important self-taught artists was a fervent Quaker preacher and missionary. As such, making a living by painting portraits and other self-indulgent symbols was incompatible with his religious convictions. To reconcile his artistic impulse with his Quaker beliefs, he painted nearly a hundred paintings of the biblical theme Peaceable Kingdom as well as other subjects. Despite his renown as a minister, it was his paintings- done privately as an expression of his faith as well as his creative compulsions- for which he is almost exclusively known today. This subject, Washington Crossing the Delaware is divergent from Hick's religious oeuvre but one that is iconic in American History. On December 25, 1776, Washington led troops across the Delaware River for a successful attack on British forces at Trenton, New Jersey. Although it was a small victory, it boosted the American morale and was a turning point in the Revolution. As with other historical subject rendered by Hicks, the composition is based on a print source. This picture is closely related to Washington at the Delaware an engraving by George S. Lang in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia after Thomas Sully Washington at the Passage of the Delaware, 1819 now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This sign and it's companion, located in the Mercer Museum in Buck's County Pennsylvania were most likely painted in 1833 for the January 1, 1934 opening of a bridge spanning the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. The sign is inscribed on the bottom, Washington Crossed here Christmas- eve 1776, aided by Genls. Sullivan, Greene, lord Sterling Mercer & St. Clair. Hick's mistakenly noted the date to be Christmas Eve. This sign hung on the New Jersey side of the bridge until seven years later in 1841 when it was rescued from a flood and placed for safe keeping in the bar of Alexander Nelson's Tavern near McKonkey's Ferry.