(1793 - 1872)
Margaret Sarah Carpenter was born Margaret Geddes in Salisbury, Wiltshire; the daughter of a retired army officer. She studied under a local artist and copied Old Master paintings at the Earl of Radnor’s Longford Castle. The Earl helped fund her move to London in 1813, following which she won three gold medals at the Society of Arts. In c.1815 she was a pupil of Thomas Lawrence. She married William Hookham Carpenter and had eight children, three of whom died in infancy. Three surviving children would become painters. She lived in Marylebone before moving to the British Museum in 1852, her husband being Keeper of Prints and Drawings. She received over 100 commissions from Eton College and produced some 1,100 works in total, exhibiting 263.
