Margaret Sarah Carpenter
Ada Lovelace
Henrietta Carpenter
Portrait of a Young Girl
Margaret Sarah Carpenter (Salisbury 1793 – 13 November 1872 London), born Margaret Sarah Geddes, was a British painter. Noted in her time, she mostly painted portraits in the manner of Sir Thomas Lawrence. She was a close friend of Richard Parkes Bonington.
Early life
She was born in Salisbury, the daughter of Captain Alexander Geddes, who was of an Edinburgh family, and Harriet Easton. She was taught art by a local drawing-master. Her first art studies were made from the pictures at Longford Castle, belonging to Lord Radnor.[1]
Career
A young girl by Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1839)
In 1812, one of her copies of the head of a boy was awarded a medal by the Society of Arts, who awarded her another medal in 1813, and a gold medal in 1814.[2] She went to London in 1814, and soon established her reputation as a fashionable portrait painter.[1] She exhibited a portrait of Lord Folkestone at the Royal Academy in 1814, and a picture entitled ‘The Fortune Teller’ at the British Institution. She exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1818 and 1866. She also exhibited at the British Institution and at the Suffolk Street Gallery.
Of her Head of a Polish Jew, exhibited at the British Institution in 1823, a reviewer wrote: "It very rarely happens that a specimen of art like this is produced from the hand of a lady: Here are colour, light, strength and effect, and anatomical drawing".[3] This painting was bought for 45 guineas by the Marquess of Stafford, one of the most influential art patrons of the day, who had previously bought her medal-winning painting of 1813. The Picture has recently resurfaced at auction (with some fire damage) and been purchased back by a family relative in December 2013 for restoration.[4]
Among her exhibited portraits were those of Sir H. Bunbury (1822), Lady Denbigh (1831), and Lady King (better known as Ada Lovelace (1835). Her last work was a portrait of Dr. Whewell. Three of her works are in the National Portrait Gallery, including portraits of her husband, Bonington and John Gibson, R.A.. There are also several 'leaving portraits' by her in the collection at Eton College. There is also one of her portraits at Frewen College, of Helen Louisa Frewen and her son Edward. Her "Portrait of a Lady" hangs in the Neill-Cochran House Museum in Austin, Texas.
Her portraits follow in the tradition of Lawrence, but Wood found them to be more fanciful and feminine character, particularly in her portraits of children.
Family
In 1817, she married William Hookham Carpenter, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.[5] Their children included two noted painters, another William and Percy Carpenter, who both travelled.[6] She introduced her sister Harriet to the young painter William Collins. They eventually married, making Margaret the aunt to Wilkie Collins, novelist and friend to Charles Dickens.[7] On her husband's death in 1866, she was given an annual pension of £100 by Queen Victoria.[1] This award was partly based on her husband's service, but also in recognition of her own artistic merits. She died in London in her 80th year.
See also
English women painters from the early 19th century who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art
Sophie Gengembre Anderson
Mary Baker
Ann Charlotte Bartholomew
Maria Bell
Barbara Bodichon
Joanna Mary Boyce
Margaret Sarah Carpenter
Fanny Corbaux
Mary Ellen Edwards
Harriet Gouldsmith
Mary Harrison
Jane Benham Hay
Anna Mary Howitt
Mary Moser
Martha Darley Mutrie
Ann Mary Newton
Emily Mary Osborn
Kate Perugini
Louise Rayner
Ellen Sharples
Rolinda Sharples
Rebecca Solomon
Elizabeth Emma Soyer
Isabelle de Steiger
Henrietta Ward
Notes
Brian Stewart & Mervyn Cutten (1997). The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 173 2.
Smith, Richard J, Margaret Sarah Carpenter, A Brief Biography, Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, 1993
Whitley, W.T, Art in England 1821-1837, Cambridge, 1930
The Literary Gazette of Belles Lettres, Arts and Sciences; Volume 7, p.268, 1823
Carpenter, William Hookham (1887). "Carpenter, William Hookham". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 09. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
The Golden Temple at Amritsar, William Carpenter, Feb. 1854, Victoria and Albert Museum, ref IS.50–1882, accessed July 2010
The King of Inventors. Catherine Peters
References
The Art Journal, 1873 p. 6
Bryan, Michael, Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, 1903
Clayton, E. C., English Female Artist, Volume 1 p. 386, 1876
Ormond, R., Early Victorian Portraits, HMSO, 2 vols, 1973
Redgrave, Samuel, A Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878
Shaw Sparrow, W., Women Painters of the World, pp. 60, 66, 96. 100, 1905
Wood, Christopher, Victorian Painters, 1. The Text, 2008
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