Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt

Titles

The only suggested title is:

  • 'Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt' (1980, YMSM). 1

Description

A portrait of a woman.

Sitter


                    Sarah Bernhardt, photograph, 1890s
Sarah Bernhardt, photograph, 1890s

Sara Bernhardt (1844-1923) , the famous actress of the Comédie Francaise and the Odeon, and a theatrical manager, founded the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris in 1899. She was also a painter and sculptress. Among the many portraits of her, a splendid profile portrait by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), in a private collection, dates from 1879.


                    Sarah Bernhardt, Revue Illustrée, vol. 10, 1890, p. 316
Sarah Bernhardt, Revue Illustrée, vol. 10, 1890, p. 316

A romantic study by G. Clairin showing Bernhardt in the role of Cleopatra, reproduced above, appeared in the Revue Illustrée in 1890. Around 1892 to 1893 she was very well-known. The Australian sculptor Bertram Mackenna (1863-1931) did a low relief bust, probably while he was in Paris. Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904) painted her as Lady Macbeth in 1892. 2 A melodramatic lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) shows her on stage in the Théâtre de la Renaissance, of which she became director in 1893: At the Renaissance: Sarah Bernhardt in "Phedre" (A la Renaissance: Sarah Bernhardt dans "Phèdre"), 1893. 3

No drawing or painting of her by Whistler has been identified, although they certainly had met.


                    Maud Franklin, The Hunterian
Maud Franklin, The Hunterian

A chalk drawing by Whistler that belonged at one time to Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was inscribed by Sarah Bernhardt; this was r.: Maud Franklin; v.: Study of Maud Franklin [M.0693], drawn by Whistler in the late 1870s, and is certainly not of Bernhardt, although she wrote on it that it was very like her!

Notes:

1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 399).

2: Mackenna in NSW website at http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/7432; Lenbach in The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 651185, website at https://commons.wikimedia.org (acc. 2017).

3: Wittrock, Wolfgang, Toulouse-Lautrec: The Complete Prints, 2 vols. London and New York, 1985 (cat. no. 37), only state. Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1964.8.1894.

Last updated: 25th October 2019 by Margaret