[1] During her time as a studio assistant, she gained experience in mixing paints, preparing canvases, and delineating backgrounds.

[2] Sarah and her sisters, Anna Claypoole and Margaretta, were different from the middle-class women of the time, as they experienced schooling, how to be a wife and mother, as well as developed entrepreneurial skills from their family such as art.

She was accepted to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1824[7] along with her sister Anna Claypoole Peale,[8] the first women to achieve this distinction.

[11] Her portrait work is regarded as stylistically unique due to her usage of detailed furs, lace, and fabrics as well as realistic faces, skin, and hair.

[2] In 1847, ill health caused her to relocate to St. Louis where she became independently successful, one of America's first professional female artists able to earn her living through her work.