Sarah Miriam Peale, a dedicated and successful artist, considered herself primarily a portraitist. She took the likeness of numerous high-profile individuals ranging from Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton to celebrated American Revolutionary War officer the Marquis de Lafayette. She also painted still lifes typically small in scale and often containing elements borrowed from the compositions of her father, James, and her cousin, Raphaelle.

Along with her elder sister, the miniaturist Anna Claypoole Peale, Sarah was among the first women to be elected to the Pennsylvania Academicians, a group of highly regarded artists active in the institutional affairs of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts