Physical Dimensions: overall: 44.2 x 36.8 cm (17 3/8 x 14 1/2 in.)
Provenance: The Burton family, near Bristol, Pennsylvania; sold to (Robert Carlen, Philadelphia);[1] sold to (Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York); sold 1944 to (M. Knoedler and Co., New York); sold 1944 to Joseph Katz, New York; sold 1945 to (M. Knoedler and Co., New York);[2] sold 1947 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Pokety Farms, Cambridge, Maryland; bequest 1980 to NGA.
[1] Robert Carlen recalls purchasing the painting near Bristol, Pennsylvania, from the Burtons. Downtown Gallery records (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington) state that the painting was "Purchased from a member of the family residing in Tullytown, near Newtown, Pennsylvania. This Quaker family also had in its possession a _Peaceable Kingdom_ [now in the Elkins collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art] and `The Declaration of Independence,' acquired by the gallery at the same time." Although the Downtown Gallery records do not name the Burton family, two other sources indicate their identity. A dealer from the area remembers that the Burton family owned a _Declaration of Independence_ and a _Peaceable Kingdom_. In addition, research conducted by a local citizen in 1920 (now in the collection of the Bucks County Historical Society) reveals that a Horace Burton of Edgley owned a _Declaration of Independence_. Eleanore Price Mather provided these two pieces of corroborating information by telephone, 30 April 1982.
[2] Frederick Newlin Price, _Edward Hicks 1780-1849_, The Benjamin West Society, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, 1945: 22, lists the painting as belonging to M. Knoedler & Company in that year.