Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was an American folk painter whose chief subject was the "Peaceable Kingdom," based on the biblical prophecy from Isaiah.

Edward Hicks was born on April 4, 1780, in a small Pennsylvania town (now Langhorne). He was orphaned early and boarded out at the age of 3 to David Twining, a Quaker, civic leader, and prosperous farmer near Newtown, Pa.

At 13 Hicks was apprenticed to a coach maker. In 1800 he began working as a journeyman coach painter and 6 months later struck out on his own. When he came of age in 1801, Hicks began to attend Quaker meetings at nearby Middletown. Two years later he applied for Quaker membership there and married Sarah Worstall, whom he had known since childhood. The couple began married life in Milford, Pa., where the first of their four children was born.

Hicks painted an elaborate tavern sign, probably in 1813, the same year that he...