Attributed To K Morse Limited Edition Lithograph Print of a Dove. Depicted holding an olive branch in its beak. Numbered 111/300, lower left. Framed. Unsigned.

Overall Size: 20 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 14 3/8 x 18 3/8 in. 

#8335  

The use of a dove as a symbol of peace originated with early Christians, who portrayed baptism accompanied by a dove, often on their sepulchers. The New Testament compared the dove to the Spirit of God that descended on Jesus during his baptism. By the end of the 2nd Century, it had also come to represent social and political peace (“peace unto the nations”) as well as personal peace, and from the 3rd Century onward it began to appear in depictions of conflict, such as Noah and the Ark, Daniel and the lions, the three young men in the furnace, and Susannah and the Elders. The dove also appeared in Christian inscriptions in the Roman catacombs, sometimes accompanied by the words “in pace” (Latin for “in peace”). The Christian symbolism of the olive branch, invariably carried by the dove, derives from Greek usage and the story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible, which ends with a dove bringing a freshly plucked olive leaf as a sign of life after the Flood. Today it is still a familiar symbol of peace for both religious and secular representations.