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The Falls of Niagara

Edward Hicks American
ca. 1825
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 759
Hicks, a Quaker minister, visited Niagara Falls in 1819 while on a missionary trip to upstate New York. He derived this view of the Canadian side of the falls from an engraving on an 1822 map of North America. The animals on the bank—moose, beaver, rattlesnake, and eagle—are all traditional Euro-American symbols of the “New World.” A one-time sign painter, Hicks carefully lettered a verse by the poet Alexander Wilson around the canvas. He used the text as a literal and interpretive framework to give Niagara Falls religious significance as a manifestation of God’s greatness.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Falls of Niagara
  • Artist: Edward Hicks (American, Langhorne, Pennsylvania 1780–1849 Newtown, Pennsylvania)
  • Date: ca. 1825
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 31 1/2 x 38 in. (80 x 96.5 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1962
  • Object Number: 62.256.3
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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