Sarah Purser as drawn by John Butler Yeats in the early 1880s
Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848 - 1943) was born in Dublin into a larger family of 11 children on March 22nd, 1848. Her family was prosperous with a background in brewing and milling. Shortly after her birth, her father Benjamin decided to move the family from Dublin south to Dungarvan in Waterford.
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In the 1860s, Purser went to finishing school in Switzerland where she learned to speak French and began painting. On her return to Ireland she enrolled in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and in 1878-79 went on to attend the Académie Julian in Paris.
In the early 1870s Benjamin’s Purser's businesses collapsed and Sarah now had to rely on her ability to generate income from art commissions. While she did some landscape and genre painting, portraiture appeared to be her metier.
1898 pastel portraits of Gonne and Yeats by Sarah Purser
Purser proved to be highly adept at tapping her network of acquaintances for commissions. She also proved to be a competent investor on Dublin’s stock exchange turning her income into a significant portfolio of investments which included Guinness. With her financial position secure, Sara played an increasingly prominent role in the cultural life of Dublin city. She established An Túr Gloine, a coop dedicated to stained class and was a prominent advocate for the Hugh Lane Gallery.
An Túr Gloine stained glass window from Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral designed by Sarah Purser
Purser continued to work for much of the rest of her long life. Her Dublin homes at Harcourt Terrace and later at Mespil Road opened once a month to host members of the literary and artistic community. She passed away aged 95 on August 7th, 1943 and is buried in Mount Jerome.
For more on the life of Sarah Purser, you can read a more comprehensive account of here life at the Dictionary of Irish Biography
