Miss Jane Barlow, D.Litt.

Artist Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848 - 1943)

DateBy late December 1894

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions62.2 x 67.4 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by Miss Barlow.

Object number232

DescriptionThis is a portrait of Jane Barlow. The Barlow and Purser families both had members on the academic staff of TCD, and Jane and Purser met at latest in 1892 during the College Tercentenary celebrations. That year Jane published Irish Idylls, a book so popular on both sides of the Atlantic that six years later it was in its eighth edition. She maintained her success throgh a prolific output of books and short stores about Irish peasant life; some of the stories were illustrated by SHP.
Jane's five letters respectively concern times for an initial sitting, 'another sitting', ' the grey jacket, the sight of which you must...by this time hate', a further sitting time, and her account of favourable comments from mutual friends who had seen the work in Purser's studio; half length, seated frontally in left half of picture with a table in right foreground; head lowered but gaze on viewer, knuckles of left hand touching her temple, left elbow and right hand on table; grey jacket with white and gold frontal inset, cuffs and collar; before her on the fawn and crimson tablecloth lies an open illuminated book, a vase of flowers behind it; background dark brown-grey. Exhibition of the portrait was probably delayed by the mourning for her mother. Despite her literary success Jane lived a retired life, but in June 1904 was conferrerd a Doctor of Letters by the University of Dubln; she died in 1917. (Information taken from John O'Grady, Sarah Purser, Four Courts Press, 1996) p. 223.

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