21 Facts About Sarah Purser

Sarah Henrietta Purser RHA was an Irish artist mainly noted for her portraiture.

Sarah Purser was the first woman to become a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Sarah Purser founded and financially supported An Tur Gloine, a stained glass studio.

Sarah Purser was one of the numerous children of Benjamin Purser, a prosperous flour miller and brewer, and his wife Anne Mallet.

Sarah Purser was related to Sir Frederic W Burton, who was a son of Hannah Mallet.

The Sarah Purser family had come to Ireland from Gloucestershire in the eighteenth century.

Until her death, Sarah Purser lived for many years in Mespil House, a Georgian mansion with beautiful plaster ceilings on Mespil Road, on the banks of the Grand Canal.

Sarah Purser was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery beside her brothers, John and Louis.

Sarah Purser attended classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.

Sarah Purser joined the Dublin Sketching Club, where she was later appointed an honorary member.

Sarah Purser became wealthy through astute investments, particularly in Guinness, for which several of her male relatives had worked over the years.

Sarah Purser was very active in the art world in Dublin and was involved in the setting up of the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, persuading the Irish government to provide Charlemont House in Parnell Square to house the gallery.

Sarah Purser had a studio at 11 Harcourt Terrace where she lived from 1887 to 1909.

Sarah Purser was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1890; the first female Associate Member in 1923, and the first female Member in 1924.

Sarah Purser financed An Tur Gloine, a stained glass cooperative, at 24 Upper Pembroke and ran it from its inauguration in 1903 until her retirement in 1940.

Sarah Purser was determined the stained glass workshop should adhere to true Arts and Crafts philosophy: 'Each window is the work of one artist who makes the sketch and cartoon and selects and paints every morsel of glass him or herself'.

Sarah Purser did not produce many items of stained glass herself.

Sarah Purser's last stained glass work is thought to be The Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan, 1926, for the Church of Ireland at Killucan, County Westmeath.

Various portraits painted by Sarah Purser are held in the National Gallery of Ireland, the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Gallery.

Archives relating to Sarah Purser are housed in the Centre for the Study of Irish Art, National Gallery of Ireland and in the National Library of Ireland.

An exhibition of Sarah Purser's work was held at Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1974 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the FNCI.