Sarah Wyman Whitman Portrait in Parlor

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, growing up in Baltimore, Sarah de Prix Wyman married woolen goods merchant Henry Whitman. At the age of twenty-six, she embarked on a career as a professional artist. She was mentored by another Jewett friend, Charles Eliot Norton, professor of art at Harvard University.

As a member of the National Academy of Design (1877) and the Society of American Artists (1880), Sarah Wyman Whitman established a reputation as a serious artist and was considered one of the best painters in Boston. With an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement, however, book cover design became a greater passion.

Whitman’s portrait in the parlor of Jewett’s South Berwick home is displayed with Jewett books for which she designed the covers.