The Brazen Serpent, hand-colored lithograph, James Queen, artist, P.S. Duval, lithographer, Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, ca. 1845.
Click on Illustrations for Larger View
In the mid 1840s the American Sunday School Union, headquartered in Philadelphia, issued the lithograph illustrated here. Entitled The Brazen Serpent, this print depicted the Biblical story of the poisonous snakes God sent to punish the discontented Israelites. According to Numbers XXI, God released a plague ofsnakes to torment the Israelites. Once they repented, God instructed Moses to make a snake and place it on a pole. Whoever gazed upon Moses' bronze snake would be cured of their affliction.
This vivid Biblical story inspired artists, including Michelangelo and Rubens, for centuries. James Queen, the artist of our lithograph, made a very straightforward depiction of the horror. Moses is shown as the only standing figure amid kneeling and prostrate men, women, and children. He points to a snake wrapped around a pole while other snakes slither around the Israelites, crawl down from the mountains, and even fall from the sky.
Queen's rendering of the tale is appropriately direct for children, the audience the American Sunday School Union hoped to reach. The American Sunday School Union formed in 1824 with the goals of organizing Sunday schools as widely as possible and to publish and disseminate religious literature, particularly to a young audience. The Library Company's collections include numerous morally uplifting books published by the organization in the mid-19th century including titles such as Betsey Ford; or the Heedless Child, The Ungrateful Boy, and Jesus, the Child's Example: In Easy Verse. The Print Department's holdings include hand-colored lithographs from the Sunday School Union's publication, Picture Lessons, Illustrating Moral Truth, two of which are illustrated here.
Illustrations from top to bottom:
The Brazen Serpent, hand-colored lithograph, James Queen, artist, P.S. Duval, lithographer, Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, ca. 1845.
The Happy Family, hand-colored lithograph, Augustus Kollner, lithographer, Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, ca. 1850.
Making Sport of the Blind Boy, hand-colored lithograph, Augustus Kollner, lithographer, Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, ca. 1850.
