Butter Sculpture - History

History

The history of carving food into sculptured objects is ancient. Archaeologists have found bread and pudding molds of animal and human shapes at sites from Babylon to Roman Britain. Butter sculpture is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition; yak butter and dye are still used to create temporary symbols for the Tibetan New Year and other religious celebrations.

During the Renaissance and Baroque periods molding food was commonly done for wealthy banquets. It was during this period that the earliest known reference to a butter sculpture is found. In 1536 Bartolomeo Scappi, cook to Pope Pius V, organized a feast composed of nine scenes elaborately carved out of food, each carried in episodically as centerpieces for a banquet. Scappi mentioned several butter sculptures for the feast, including an elephant with a palanquin, a figure of Hercules struggling with a lion, and a Moor on a camel. Another early reference is found in the biography of Antonio Canova (1757–1822), who said he first came to his patron’s attention when as a humble kitchen boy he sculpted an impressive butter lion for a banquet - the story is now thought apocryphal, though it reaffirms the existence of butter sculptures during that period. Butter sculpting continued into the 18th century when English dairy maids molded butter pats into decorative shapes.

The earliest butter sculpture in the modern sense (as public art and not a banquet centerpiece) can be traced to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition where Caroline Shawk Brooks, a farm woman from Helena, Arkansas, displayed her Dreaming Iolanthe, a basrelief bust of a woman modeled in butter. It was kept cold with a system of layered bowls and frequent ice changes. Brooks had no formal art training but as a farmer she spent years making butter and since 1867, to make the work more interesting, she began sculpting it, eventually using it as a selling point. As her skills progressed she began to see it as more than marketing butter, indeed as an art form unto itself. In 1873 she made her masterpiece Dreaming Iolanthe, which she would re-do over the years at regional exhibitions around the US. Thus she was invited to bring a replica to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 where it drew so much attention and praise she was invited to sculpt live for the crowds. Afterwards she studied in Paris and Florence and eventually became a professional sculptor who worked in marble, but occasionally made more butter art. She returned for the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and made busts of Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus, however by now she was not the only butter sculptor, the art form was coming into its own.

The heyday of butter sculpting was from about 1890 to 1930. During this period refrigeration became widely available, and the American dairy industry began promoting butter sculpture as a way to compete against synthetic butter substitute like Oleomargarine (margarine). Butter sculpting decreased during the Great Depression and WWII due to shortages but picked up again after the war.