Receipt of Payment for Painting James Cornell's Bull

Date1846

Issued by Edward Hicks (1780-1849)

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Bucks County

MediumBrown ink on machine-made wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 2 7/8 x 6 7/16in. (7.3 x 16.4cm); the piece is unframed.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1960.1400.1

DescriptionAn piece of paper with six lines of inscription on one side.
Label TextThis manuscript receipt documents payment for --- and was acquired with --- Edward Hicks's portrait of James Cornell's Prize Bull, acc. no. 1958.101.11. It is said to have been glued to the back of the painting, but if so, when and by whom it was applied and removed are undocumented.

The $15.00 payment Hicks received for his work seems high in light of the $20.00 he charged for, as he put it, "one of the best paintings/I ever done" (AARFAM acc. no. 1961.101.2, a Peaceable Kingdom). The academic style and more painstaking handling of the bull's portrait may have influenced Hicks's charge. At any rate, it did not deter Cornell who, two years later, commissioned a large farmscape from the artist (Cornell Farm, now owned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC).
InscribedIn brown ink in script on one side is: "James Cornell/To Edward Hicks De [or Dr?]/To painting his prize bull. $15.00/Rec 5th mo 16th 1846 the above in full/of all demands by me/Edward Hicks".
ProvenanceJames C. Cornell; unidentified descendants; Lillian Harney, Trenton, NJ. N. B.