Edward Hicks' Penn's Treaty is among the most highly-valued works to be offered at Christie's America Furniture, Folk Art and Prints auction, which will be held on January 25 in New York.

William Penn was given his colony due to a debt owed to his father by King Charles II

The piece, which is one of Hicks' major works, will be sold with a $600,000-900,000 estimate. Sharing this valuation - the highest in the sale - is a spectacular John Townsend Chippendale bureau.

Despite starting his professional life as a soldier, Edward Hicks (1780-1879) became known as one of the foremost members of the peace-loving Quaker religion. By the age of 22 he had become a prominent minister and began travelling in Philadelphia in 1813 as a Quaker preacher.

Trained as a coach and house painter, Hicks soon turned his attention to creating works of art that portrayed his religious beliefs. With working and living together in peace one of his central themes, the concept of Native Americans meeting with settlers became a recurring feature in many of his paintings.

The example at auction depicts the Quaker settler and founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, who was known for his good relations with the Lenape Indians, signing the 1682 peace treaty. After suffering persecution in England for his beliefs, Penn granted unprecedented religious and civil liberties to colonialists in Pennsylvania and was one of Hick's greatest heroes as well as the subject for many of his works.

View the letter signed by Penn's father (Sir William Penn) and Samuel Pepys we have for sale.

The oil on canvas has been consigned from the property of a distinguished American collection, and has also been part of the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and New York's Hirschl & Adler Galleries.

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