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Wednesday, September 16, 2020

A Chronicle of Sarah Henrietta Purser: Irish Artist & Patron of the Arts

When you’re one of eleven children — three daughters, and eight sons — born into a highly ambitious family, how do you distinguish yourself?

Sarah Henrietta Purser made her mark as an  portrait painter, glass artist, and patron of the arts. She was a woman who made substantive changes to the way in which the world of art operated in Ireland. Although she had been born into privilege, Sarah’s path was not an easy one. 

Born 22 March 1848 in Kingstown, now Dún Laoghaire, Sarah Henrietta Purser was the third daughter and eighth child born to Anne Mallett Purser and her husband Benjamin Purser. Sarah was christened with the forename of her first born sister Sarah Jane who died in infancy in 1840.


Sarah's father Benjamin Purser sprang from a fabulously wealthy Dublin family. Both his father John and elder brother John were ambitious and talented. The two entered into a partnership with Guinness in the St. James Gate Brewery, notably the only pair outside the Guinness family ever given such an opportunity. Benjamin briefly apprenticed at the St. James Gate Brewery; however, while his brother John was acclaimed as ‘a gifted chief brewer’, Benjamin simply did not have the knack for it. 

In the spring of 1848, Benjamin took the decision to move his family to Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. There he bought a corn mill. Away from the pressures of his father and family in Dublin, Benjamin appeared to prosper as a flour miller for nigh on twenty years. He also bought a corn store and a grain warehouse, and invested heavily in the new Gas Works. In 1867 he even became a partner in the new brewery of Purser & Cody. 

On the brink of womanhood in 1861, thirteen year old Sarah was sent to a finishing school in Switzerland to complete her education. There she became fluent in French and began painting. Sarah would remain at the school until 1863. When she returned to Ireland, Sarah continued to hone her skills as an artist. In 1872, for the first time, Sarah exhibited a painting at the Royal Hibernian Academy [RHA].  Her family allowed Sarah to continue her education where her talents took her, thus she attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin from 1873 - 1876; there she won the landscape painting prize in 1876.

Little did his family know, but by 1871 Benjamin Purser’s business concerns were collapsing. He had been a spendthrift, splashing out on creature comforts, and throwing a lavish wedding for his eldest daughter. He could afford none of it. 

Patriarch of the family, Benjamin’s father John Purser, stepped in and paid off his son’s creditors. Benjamin was mortified. He emigrated (read absconded) away from Ireland, going to America under the guise of looking for work to support his family. Sarah would never again set eyes on her father.

Sarah and her mother were left in very reduced circumstances, wholly dependent on the kindness of their Dublin relatives. Her entire life long Sarah recalled how deeply ashamed she felt when entering shops in town where she knew her father owed money.

Benjamin Purser died in America 14 December 1899, leaving £1,327 17s. 9d. to his son William. There was nothing bequeathed to Sarah or her mother.


Sarah was a pragmatist who knew she had to earn a living, and she was determined to do so as a portrait painter. With the aid of her brothers, Sarah travelled to the continent, where she spent six months completing her art education at the Académie Julian in the Passage Panorama, Paris. 

Although it might have loomed as a monumental task, earning her living as an artist was eased by Sarah’s talent for networking. One of her first portraits was commissioned by her friend Jane L'Estrange. Jane introduced Sarah to Lady Gore-Booth who commissioned at least three portraits from Sarah, including a famous double portrait of Constance Gore-Booth (later Markievicz) and her sister Eva. 

Once she had her paint brushes in the door, so to speak, Sarah would come to count among her connections, and portrait subjects, the likes of Maud Gonne, the Yeats family, John Millington Synge and many other individuals of note. Thus she was able to build a highly successful portraiture business. Sarah was once quoted as saying of her success as a portraitist, “I went through the aristocracy like measles”.



By the year 1900 Sarah Purser was recognised as a so-called ‘woman of substance’. She was celebrated for her work as an artist, a patron of artists, and a skilled fundraiser for the art community. By virtue of the quality of her work as a portrait artist, along with some savvy investing, Sarah was earning an excellent living; she pegged her wealth at some £30,000. She kept a keen eye on the Dublin Stock Exchange, invested in Guinness and other Irish companies, such that by the time she was middle-aged Sarah had become a wealthy woman in her own right, and could do whatever she liked.


Sarah mounted an exhibition of the work of John Yeats and Nathanial Hone in 1901, an exhibition said to have inspired Hugh Lane to lay the ground work for his Gallery of Modern Art. Lane was drowned 7 May 1915 in the sinking of the Lusitania, but Sarah kept his dream alive, petitioning the Irish government to house the gallery in Charlemont House. Pictured above, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art finally opened at Charlemont House in 1933; it remains there to this day. 


In 1903, at 24 Upper Pembroke Street in Dublin, Sarah Purser founded and fully financed ‘An Túr Gloine’ (anglicised: Tower of Glass), a co-operative studio for stained glass and opus sectile artists, including Michael Healy, Evie Hone, Beatrice Elvery, Wilhelmina Geddes, Harry Clarke and Alfred Ernest Child. The raison d’etre of the studio was to revive the craft of stained glass in Ireland. Despite her best efforts to remain known principally as a portraitist, after the founding of the studio, Sarah became known for her work as a stained glass artist as well.

From 1878 until 1938 Sarah regularly showed her work at exhibitions of the Royal Hibernian Academy. She had been made an Honorary Member in 1890, and in 1923 Sarah finally became the first female member of the RHA. In 1924, Sarah initiated the launch of the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, for whom she raised considerable funds. As well, from 1914-43, Sarah held an appointment on the Board of Governors and Guardians of the National Gallery of Ireland. 


Sarah Purser lived and worked at number 11 Harcourt Terrace from 1887 to 1909 (see first image). I can imagine her studio at the gable end of the property, with light coming in through the glazed sections of the mansard roof. Every Tuesday afternoon at Harcourt Terrace Sarah held an ‘at home’. These gatherings attracted the best of the Irish literary and artistic communities, discussing all manner of topics from art, music, and literature through to agrarian unrest and politics. In 1909 Sarah moved to Mespil House, the home of her brother John Mallet Purser, where Sarah continued to host her 'at home' gatherings.

Despite all Sarah Purser had done for the Irish Art Community, as well as the quality and depth of the work she produced, at the age of 75, she had to organise and mount her own exhibition. 

After suffering a stroke at Mespil House, Sarah Henrietta Purser died 7 August 1943, aged 95 years. She is interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross, Dublin City. 

Most fittingly, Sarah’s epitaph is ‘Fortis et strenua’, ‘Strong & Vigorous’.

Today the name Sarah Henrietta Purser still echoes in the halls of Irish Academia because of an endowment made in 1934 to both University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin, funding scholarships for the study of European Art History. 

2 comments:

  1. Impressive and inspiring woman. Wonderful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much, Emily! Sarah was indeed impressive and inspiring.

      Delete

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