Sarah Goodridge

Self portrait, 1830.
Born February 5, 1788
Templeton, Massachusetts
Died December 28, 1853 (aged 65)
Known for Portrait miniature

Sarah Goodridge (February 5, 1788 – December 28, 1853) was an American painter who specialized in portrait miniatures. She was the older sister of Elizabeth Goodridge, also an American miniaturist.

Life

Goodridge was born in Templeton, Massachusetts, the sixth child and third daughter of Ebenezer Goodridge and his wife Beulah Childs.[1] At an early age, she began drawing and showed an aptitude for art. Women's educational opportunities were limited at the time and where Goodridge lived, so she was essentially a self-taught artist.

In 1820, she went to live with her sister Eliza in Boston[2][3] and began receiving lessons and painting miniature portraits of exceptional quality. Her work continued to improve and she earned enough from commissions to support herself and her family for several decades. Her paintings were exhibited in Boston and Washington D.C.. After her eyesight failed in 1851, she retired from painting and settled in Reading, Massachusetts.[4]

Daniel Webster
Gilbert Stuart
Goodridge became well known for her portraits of politician Daniel Webster (left) and fellow-artist Gilbert Stuart (right).[5]

Among Goodridge's most interesting and personal works is a miniature portrait of her own bared breasts, entitled Beauty Revealed, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was the inspiration for a miniature painted by the fictional heroine of Blindspot: A Novel (New York, 2008), by Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore.[6] Executed in 1828, it was presented by the artist to her close friend, correspondent, and occasional subject, Daniel Webster. The work was included in the retrospective, "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions."[7]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Holton, Randall L; Gilday, Charles A (Nov–Dec 2012). "Sarah Goodrich - Mapping places in the heart". The Magazine Antiques. ISSN 0161-9284.
  2. ↑ Sarah Goodrich, miniature painter, West St. Boston Directory, 1823
  3. ↑ Sarah Goodridge, miniature painter, no.5 Myrtle Street. Boston Almanac, 1841, 1847; Boston Directory, 1850
  4. ↑ Carol Kort, Liz Sonneborn (2002). A to Z of American Women in the Visual Arts. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438107912.
  5. ↑ Hosmer, Herbert H. Jr (1952). "Hand-made and home-made American paper dolls". New York History 33 (4): 443–444. JSTOR 23153601.
  6. ↑ "Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore: Facts and Fictions in Revolutionary Boston". Common-place (American Antiquarian Society) 9 (3). Archived from the original on September 27, 2014. Retrieved October 5, 2014.
  7. ↑ Citter, Holland (October 23, 2008). "A Banquet of World Art, 30 Years in the Making". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 March 2013.

Sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sarah Goodridge.