Sarah Biffen, Armless English Painter

Self-portrait. Sarah Biffen (October 1784 - October 2, 1850) was a Victorian English painter born with no arms. She was 37 inches tall. Sarah was born with no arms and only vestigial legs. Despite her handicap, Biffen learned to read, and later was able to write using her mouth. When Biffen was 12, her family apprenticed her to a man named Emmanuel Dukes, who exhibited her in fairs and sideshows throughout England. According to some accounts, it was Dukes who taught her to paint, holding the paint-brush in her mouth, in order to increase her value as an attraction. The Earl of Morton sponsored her to receive lessons from a Royal Academy of Arts painter, William Craig. The Society of Artists of Great Britain awarded her a medal in 1821 and the Royal Academy accepted her paintings. The Royal Family commissioned her to paint miniature portraits of them, as a result of which she became very popular. Charles Dickens mentioned her in Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Little Dorrit. She died in 1850 at the age of 66. This portrait was drawn and painted by Miss Biffen and presented to William Stevenson, undated.

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