Caroline Shawk Brooks was one of the best known American sculptors of the late 19th century. She was best known for her sculptures made of butter, resulting in her earning the nickname “The Butter Woman”.
Brooks began working with butter in 1867 when cotton on her family’s farm in Arkansas failed to grow. Whereas other women on farms sold butter shaped by standard butter molds, Brooks used her artistic ability to create butter sculptures of shells, animals and faces, all of which sold well and helped make up lost income from the lack of crop production.
Brooks’s most famous butter sculpture was named “Dreaming Iolanthe” (second photo below). It was displayed in the Woman’s Building during the 1876 Philadelphia World’s Fair. It was the most viewed exhibit in that building. Brooks was inspired to sculpt the image of Iolanthe after reading a drama in 1873 titled “King René’s Daughter”, in which Iolanthe, a princess, is born blind but does not realize she is blind until her 16th birthday. She does not understand her condition since her parents had never told her she was blind or even mentioned what sight was, nor did they discuss anything visual in her presence. They had kept the fact that Iolanthe could not see a secret from her.
Brooks had produced a number of Dreaming Iolanthe butter sculptures both before and after the 1876 World’s Fair, including a life-sized butter sculpture of the blind princess in 1878 to be displayed at that year’s World’s Fair in Paris (third and fourth photos below). The life-sized sculpture was sent to Paris by ship in which customs officials, rather than listing her sculpture as an art piece, simply logged it as “110 lbs. of butter”. There was a delay in shipping her butter sculpture to Paris, as she had difficulty locating a ship that carried enough ice to keep it from melting during the journey.
Brooks eventually opened her own studio in New York where she became financially successful enough to purchase marble and started sculpting busts of well-known presidents, politicians, authors and scientists throughout history. She went back to sculpting butter in 1893, when she sculpted Christopher Columbus, to be exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (last photo below), along with four marble sculptures, including one of Dreaming Iolanthe, which had become apparent by this time as her favorite image to sculpt.
Not much is known about Caroline Shawk Brooks during her later life. She moved around the country and passed away in St. Louis in 1913 at age 73. Because none of her famous butter sculptures exist today other than in photos, she is sadly a talented artist time has forgotten.
