Sarah Fisher Ames
Sarah Fisher Ames (1817–1901) was an American sculptor, best known for a bust of Abraham Lincoln that she produced in 1866.
Also recorded as Sarah Fisher Clampitt · Sarah Fisher Clampitt Ames
Sarah Fisher Ames

Sarah Fisher Ames · Public domain
- Name
- Sarah Fisher Ames
- Birth Name
- Sarah Fisher Clampitt
- Birthplace
- Lewes, Delaware, USA
- Died
- 1901
- Place of death
- Washington, D.C., USA
- Known for
- Sculpture
- Spouse
- Joseph Alexander Ames
- Full name
- Sarah Fisher Clampitt.
- Born
- 1817. · Lewes.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- artist and sculptor.
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Documentary summary
Sarah Fisher Ames (1817–1901) was an American sculptor, best known for a bust of Abraham Lincoln that she produced in 1866.
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Sarah Fisher Ames (1817–1901) was an American artist and sculptor. The artist was born Sarah Fisher Clampitt in Lewes.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Sarah Fisher Ames • Birth Name — Sarah Fisher Clampitt • Birthplace — Lewes, Delaware, USA • Died — 1901 • Place of death — Washington, D.C., USA • Known for — Sculpture • Spouse — Joseph Alexander Ames
Biography
Biography
Sarah Fisher Clampitt was born on 13 August 1817 in Lewes, Delaware. She studied art in Boston and in Rome, and married Joseph Alexander Ames, a portrait painter, in 1845. While in Boston, she may have attended "Conversations" hosted by women's activist Margaret Fuller. The couple spent time in Rome, where Sarah Ames studied Italian sculpture. Little else is known about her early life. She produced sculptures of notable Americans, including C. T. Brooks (1858), John Andrew (1867), Ulysses S. Grant (1868), Anson Burlingame, Ross Winans, and at least five busts of Abraham Lincoln. During the American Civil War, Ames worked as a volunteer nurse, rising to direct the hospital situated in the U.S. Capitol. She was a good friend of Lincoln, either through her position at the hospital or the antislavery movement. Rufus Wilson, author of Lincoln in Portraiture, claimed that Ames knew Lincoln "in an intimate and friendly way" through her work at the hospital. Ames was one of the first sculptors of Lincoln. By 1865, she had created a plaster bust of Lincoln, which she received a patent for, and sold plaster replications of. In 1866 or 1868 Ames was commissioned to create a marble bust of Lincoln by the U.S. Congress. In 1868, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts exhibited the bust. Her work has been compared to the Lincoln bust produced around the same time by Vinnie Ream. Her 1866 bust of Lincoln is held in the U.S. Capitol Building. Her busts of Lincoln are also located at the Massachusetts State House, the Williams College Museum of Art, the Lynn Historical Society, and the Woodmere Art Museum. Ames exhibited her work at The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. She died in Washington, D.C., on 8 March 1901. • Illustration — Abraham Lincoln by Sarah Fisher Clampitt Ames, 1868
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Origins and background
Origins and background
The following is established of origins and background. Born in 1817 at Lewes. Institutional cataloguing adds that sarah Fisher Ames died in 1901 at Washington, D.C. Sarah Fisher Ames is recorded at birth as Sarah Fisher Clampitt.
Works and production
Works and production
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count. Recorded with the occupation artist. Recorded with the occupation sculptor. It is also recorded that sarah Fisher Ames is recorded with the gender female. Born on 13 August 1817. Institutional cataloguing adds that sarah Fisher Ames died on 8 March 1901. The same evidence establishes that sarah Fisher Ames is recorded as human.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Lewes.
Birth place
Washington and D.C.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Sarah Fisher Ames”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q29898604: Sarah Fisher Ames
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Sarah Fisher Ames. ArtNet.
- 2.Ames, Sarah Fisher. Woodmere Art Museum.
- 3.Dabakis, Melissa. A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome (Penn State Press, 2020).
- 4.Skvarla, Diane K. United States Senate Catalogue of Fine Art. Government Printing Office. 258. 2005.
- 5.U.S. Senate: Abraham Lincoln. United States Senate.
- 6.Wilson, Rufus Rockwell. Lincoln in portraiture. New York, The Press of the Pioneers, Inc. 178. 1935.
- 7.Dabakis, Melissa. Sculpting Lincoln: Vinnie Ream, Sarah Fisher Ames, and the Equal Rights Movement. www.journals.uchicago.edu. 22. 1. Spring 2008. 10.1086/587917.
- 8.Nichols, K. L. Women's Art at the World's Columbian Fair & Exposition, Chicago 1893.
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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