Lot 296: WILLIAMS, William (1727-1794), artist, D[AWKINS], H[enry], engraver. BENJA

WILLIAMS, William (1727-1794), artist, D[AWKINS], H[enry], engraver. BENJAMIN LAY. Lived to the Age of 80, in the Latter part of which, he Observ'd extreem Temperance in his Eating and Drinking. His Fondness for a Particularity in Dress and Customs at times subjected him to the Redicule of the Ignorant, but his Friends who were more Intimate with Him, thought Him an Honest Religious man. [Philadelphia: Henry Dawkins, c. 1760]. A rare near-contemporary print of The Quaker Comet, Benjamin Lay (1682-1759). A Quaker by birth, Lay emigrated from England to the Americas in 1718, first establishing himself as a merchant in Barbados. Already a strident opponent of slavery in England (he had been disowned from Friends' Meetings in Devonshire and Colchester), he was said to be struck by the horrors of what he witnessed there. In 1732, Lay moved to Philadelphia and became an itinerant bookseller, selling Bibles, poetry and philosophy. He befriended Benjamin Franklin who published Lay's 1737 book, All Slave Keepers That keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates. It is also believed that Franklin may have commissioned William Williams to paint the diminutive Lay's portrait (he stood just four feet tall), upon which Henry Dawkins based the present engraving. (The original painting, long thought lost, was rediscovered in a Pennsylvania barn in 1979.) The present image shows Lay toward the end of his life, standing before a cave on the where he moved following his wife Sarah's death in 1737. While it has been thought that Lay lived in the cave, it may have been used to house his extensive library. In 1758, the Pennsylvania Quakers, after more than 20 years of harsh castigation and provocative stunts by Lay, finally formally denounced slave trading and disavowed all slave holders. When Lay heard the news he said, 'I can now die in peace,' closed his eyes and expired (Jill Lepore, These Truths, 2018, p. 76). See also Wilford P. Cole, Henry Dawkins and the Quaker Comet Winterthur Portfolio. Vol. 4 (1968), pp. 34-46; Marcus Rediker, Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2017). Extremely Rare: According to Rare Book Hub, the last copy of Dawkins' print to appear at auction was in the collection of Samuel W. Pennypacker and sold in 1906 (Davis & Harvey, Philadelphia, 10 April 1906, lot 358.) Another copy was offered by the Franklin Bookshop in 1916 or 1917, and Freidenberg Gallery, New York offered an example of undetermined date in 1936. Engraving on laid paper. Plate: 8 9/15 x 7 1/4 in (218 x 185mm), sheet: 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 in (247 x 193mm). (Light toning) hinged to a mat and framed.