Female artist of the week – Margaret Sarah Carpenter
I love stumbling across women artists, particularly artists from historical periods when being an artist or having a trade was not the done thing. I have a whole book dedicated to women artists which I adore, but I love finding new ones. Anyway, I thought I’d start doing this on a regular basis. Some will be historical, some contemporary, some I love, some I don’t care too much for but still find interesting from a historical standpoint. Anyway, here’s one to kick us off!
Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1793–1872) was a Victorian era painter in Britain who mostly focused on portraits, and continued to paint after she married. She won awards, exhibited at the Royal Academy & British Institution, starting her career at 20 years old. She was noted as being ’the best woman portrait painter of her time’ (Whitley, p. 162), and painted many notable Victorians – both male and female.
I came across her while reading about Ada Lovelace (sometimes known as the first computer programmer …. considering I’m a female programmer in my day job, I love reading about my forebears 
). Here is a small sample of her work:
Portrait of a young girl, thought to be Henrietta Carpenter, in oriental dress
Ada Lovelace, 19th century British mathematician (1836)
Mrs Charles Sabine Thellusson, née Georgiana Theobald (1828–1883), Copyright English Heritage / Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Portrait of a Man (possibly Alexander Boyd) 1845, Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum / Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
4 Comments
Carol Hartman
May 15, 2012I recently purchased a painting by Carpenter 1873 , it is of 4 children, one with a toy hoop. 2 females and two males. If you have any information , would you please e-mail me? Thank you, Carol Hartman
ncadet
May 18, 2012Sadly I have no information for you. I didn’t come across any information or even photographs remotely related to the described painting … the closest was a single boy dressed in blue with a toy hoop.
eugenie
December 8, 2012But isn’t sarah capenter a girl working in factories during the victorian area
Nicole
December 9, 2012Hi Eugenie, I believe you are referring to a different person. Margaret Sarah Carpenter was born Margaret Sarah Geddes, Carpenter was her married name and I’ve not read anywhere that she was born into poverty/ forced into work houses. From a quick google search, Sarah Carpenter was a working girl in Victorian factories, but I’m pretty sure they are two different people.