Without Hands

It's a story of triumph over adversity. 

And an amazing piece of social history too. This is the tale of a woman who overcame severe disability to make a career out of painting, and not in modern times, but two centuries ago. There's a free exhibition all about her at the Philip Mould gallery in central London. It's called "Without Hands": The Art of Sarah Biffin, and it's fascinating.

Sarah Biffin was born into a farming family in Somerset in 1784, with neither arms nor legs, according to baptism records. She suffered from the same condition as the contemporary artist Alison Lapper, famously immortalised by Marc Quinn on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. She was well known enough in Victorian times to have been mentioned on several occasions in the novels of Charles Dickens, but then she somehow faded from view. 

Given the child mortality rates in the Georgian era, it would be wonder enough that a severely disabled baby like Sarah Biffin reached adulthood. But what's more miraculous is that, as a child, she taught herself to thread a needle and sew using her mouth and shoulder, and then to write. At the age of 20, a showman named Dukes offered her employment to demonstrate her skills, which soon included painting, to a paying audience at fairs up and down Britain. 

Each visitor will be entitled to a specimen of her writing.... miniature likenesses taken on ivory, from 3 to 10 guineas each. 

This itinerant lifestyle continued for 15 years, taking Biffin as far north as Edinburgh and Glasgow, as far west as St Ives, and even to Calais and Brussels. 

Biffin's early painting so impressed George Douglas, the Earl of Morton, that he arranged for her to receive formal training from the painter William Marshall Craig from around 1809, when she was 25.

A couple of years later, she was creating exquisite paintings of feathers. Vibrant colours applied with the most delicate and daintiest of brushstrokes. As Philip Mould says in the video that accompanies this show, these pictures are so lifelike, you feel you could blow the feathers off the paper and into the air.

Biffin was able to leave Dukes's employment in 1819, and two years later she set up on her own with a studio in London. She received a silver medal from the Society of Arts and had work exhibited at the Royal Academy. 

Her miniature portraits are little gems. Anna Eliza Rausch's wedding portrait in watercolour on ivory -- a demanding technique -- bursts with intricate detail. Take a look at the bride's hair with such fine soft flowing ringlets; her dress features huge billowing, diaphanous puffed sleeves dotted with little lace or embroidery details, captured as precisely as the folds of the heavier satin across her bust. All this in a painting roughly 4 by 3.5 inches. 

Biffin's fame and skill won her royal approval, in Britain and abroad. She was appointed miniature painter in the Netherlands to Willem Frederik, the Prince of Orange and future king. Here's Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester.

It's also intriguing to see how Biffin presented herself. She recorded her own image throughout her career, portraying herself as an artist at her work, dressed in the latest fashion. Her disability is not concealed, but  it's not exactly emphasised either. Look at the face and the hat, and she might be a woman you would see on the fashionable streets of Bath. Look a little lower, and you realise that no arms protrude from the short puffy sleeves, while her trade-mark paintbrush is pinned to her shoulder.

There's been a resurgence of interest in Biffin's art in the past couple of years, partly as a result of the research Philip Mould & Co have done to prepare for this exhibition. Her paintings are becoming more expensive, but before you go to look in the attic for a long-disregarded miniature, take note that she did a lot of work under her married name. 

Biffin married William Stephen Wright in 1824, but they appear never to have lived together. There were rumours that he absconded with her life savings, though she signed pictures as Mrs Wright until 1841. Little is known about Mr Wright, but researchers are on the case. Biffin moved to Liverpool, with the idea of crossing the Atlantic to America, but it was an ambition she never achieved. She died in 1850, shortly after again exhibiting a portrait at the Royal Academy. 

Practicalities

"Without Hands": The Art of Sarah Biffin is on until December 21 at Philip Mould, 18-19 Pall Mall, just a few minutes walk from Piccadilly Circus or Charing Cross Underground. It's open on Monday to Friday from 0930 to 1800. Entry is free and no booking is required. Give yourself 45 minutes or so for the exhibition and excellent accompanying films. 

Images

'The Celebrated Miss Beffin' large letterpress broadside, c. 1812, Philip Mould & Co

Frances Cooper, Sarah Biffin at Bury Fair, 1810, South West Heritage Trust and Somerset County Council
Sarah Biffin, A Study of Feathers, 1812, Philip Mould & Co
Sarah Biffin, Wedding Portrait of Anna Eliza Rausch, 1835, Philip Mould & Co
Sarah Biffin, HRH Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, 1834, South West Heritage Trust and Somerset County Council
Sarah Biffin, Self-Portrait, 1821, Private collection