Portrait of Sara Carter Gaut

Creator: William Edward West (1788-1857)
Title: Portrait of Sara Carter Gaut
Date: ca. 1855
Description: Oval portrait of a woman in opulent attire, sitting facing right.
Historical Note: Mrs. Sarah Ewing Sims Carter (later Sarah Carter Gaut) was a cousin of Adelicia Acklen who had also been twice widowed. She accompanied Acklen to Louisiana in the days after Joseph Acklen's death to secure and sell the cotton crop. The two traveled by boat from New Orleans to Angola, arriving early in 1864. They found a territory in upheaval. It took the two women eight months to arrange for permission to move the cotton to the Mississippi River and to obtain the wagons and mules needed to transport it. Acklen had to play both sides off each other in order to move the cotton and there were several times when it appeared she would fail. However she managed to get 2,000 bales to Liverpool, England, where she sold it for 75 cents per pound, generating $960,000 in profits in gold. This portrait of Sarah Carter Gaut was painted by Kentucky-born William Edward West, a largely self-taught artist. West knew Thomas Sully's Philadelphia studio and also had seen Gilbert Stuart's paintings. After working as an itinerant painter in Mississippi, West went to Europe where he exhibited at the Royal Academy. He returned to Nashville in 1855 where his sisters lived, and painted this portrait at that time.
Institution: Belmont Mansion
Publisher: Digital Initiatives, James E. Walker Library, Middle Tennessee State University
Rights: Images reproduced on this website are intended for individual, educational use only. For research inquiries about specific objects or requests for high resolution images , contact Belmont Mansion.
URL: http://cdm15838.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/shades