Ten scenes from the Passion of Christ are represented in the mirror frame, and a figure of Saint Margaret, patron saint of brides, is carved on a bedpost. Hicks had been raised by a Quaker family in Pennsylvania, and in his own day he was not considered to be, nor did he think of himself as, an artist. He started his career as a coach and sign painter and then became a Quaker preacher in Newton, Pennsylvania. American folk art, which flourished from 1750 to1900 until the advent of the machine age, is an expression, traditional in nature, of the common person. Descriptors used to define folk art include primitive, naive, or self-taught.
Most folk artists have little or no formal training.
Their approach is simple and uncomplicated rather than sophisticated. Folk artists used popular prints and engravings as source materials, and they relied on strength of design rather than on realism in their work. These paintings were religious and historical in nature and illustrate the prophecy of Isaiah that, with God's peaceable kingdom on earth, the lion would lie down with the lamb, and a child would lead wild and domestic animals alike to peace. Hicks also incorporated into many of his paintings on this subject a depiction of William Penn purchasing Pennsylvania from the Indians. Hicks's personal vision of the ideal is full of symbolism.