Butter sculpture

Butter sculptures often depict animals, people, buildings and other objects. They are best known as attractions at state fairs in the United States as lifesize cows and people, but can also be found on banquet tables and even small decorative butter pats. Butter carving was an ancient craft in Tibet, Babylon, Roman Britain and elsewhere. The earliest documented butter sculptures date from Europe in 1536, where they were used on banquet tables. The earliest pieces in the modern sense as public art date from ca. 1870s America, created by Caroline Shawk Brooks, a farm woman from Helena, Arkansas. The heyday of butter sculpturing was about 1890-1930, but butter sculptures are still a popular attraction at agricultural fairs, banquet tables and as decorative butter patties.

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.

In Europe, 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.

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