18
12. Sarah Purser HRHA (1848-1943)
A Visitor, (1885)
Oil on canvas, 76 x 51cm
Signed
Exhibited:
Irish Women Artists
Exhibition National Gallery of Ireland 1983
“Seeing AVisitor once more and experiencing its mystique are pleasures in themselves,
and at the same time this is an opportunity to unravel facets of Sarah Purser’s early
career.This sitter is Mary Maud, daughter of Colonel Marcus de la Poer Beresford, and
a relative of Archbishop Marcus Beresford of Armagh at whose cathedral she and Julian
had married in 1883. Glimpses of the artist emerged when Mary Maud wrote that “…I
found some specs and said at once they were yours, there is an outward bend of the
sticks that I well remember gave your veil a peculiar cock at each side - I will send them
to you tomorrow.We all missed you very much and now we frequently quote you”.
Sarah habitually wore pince-nez, but no doubt a veil required more stable spectacles.
Whatever about specs and quotable bon-mots, what Sarah did not leave behind was a
second picture for which Mary Maud had posed, in the same chic hat and walking-dress,
and this was shown as AVisitor at the annual exhibition of the Dublin Sketching Club
in December 1885. One press reviewer found the picture “remarkably cleverly painted
with a firm yet pliable brush. A young lady, dressed in a light gown, is seated in the
shadow of a window on a sofa, the light falling on her dress.The position is easy, yet
very much foreshortened, and the tone that pervades the penumbra of the room is ex-
ceedingly true, if a little bleak and cold.” He made no mention of the brilliant handling of
the palette-knife to create the three-dimensional effect of the skirt, nor did he note the
verve with which the parasol and striped sofa are swept onto the canvas, nor the able
and economic rendering of details from a ring to scarlet boot-buttons. And the fact that
a “subject” exhibit by a professional bore no price escaped comment too. Not offering
AVisitor for sale was, to judge by Sarah’s like treatment of Le Petit Déjeuner, surely a
mark of the painter’s affection for their models, and her lasting regard for both pictures,
which remained in her possession all her life. AVisitor was hanging over a doorway in
Mespil House when Sarah Purser’s goods were auctioned after her death.
Dr. John O’Grady
