Titles

The only suggested title is:

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

Description

A portrait of a woman.

Sitter

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.

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.

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!