Sara Page Portrait of Marie
- Reference
- 11258 / A146a
- Category
- British Women Artists / Portraits
Sara Page (1855-1943)
Portrait of Marie
Signed l.l.: S Page, inscribed u.l.: MARIE, oil on board, label
attached verso: Papeterie F. Dupré, 141 Faubourg St Honoré, Paris
46 x 38 cm.; 18 x 15 inches
Literature
Olga Baird (Yatsenko), Sara Wells Page (1855-1943): a Parisian
artist from Wolverhampton, 2022, p. 12 (ill).
Sara Page was born in Moxley, Staffordshire, the fourth child of Samuel Page, a successful timber merchant, and his wife Sara Wells Page, the daughter of a wealthy local ironmaster. Her parents died in the 1870s leaving her and her siblings financially independent. From 1884-1891 she studied drawing at Wolverhampton School of Art and then travelled to Italy to continue her artistic education, making copies in oil after originals in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. She was photographed in Venice by the photographers Fratelli Vianelli.
In 1892, having been encouraged by Sir Frederick Leighton, Page went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, under Bouguereau, Tony Robert-Fleury and Gabriel Ferrier. Male and female students received the same training which included drawing from live models, the sexes taught in separate ateliers. One of the ateliers for female students was at 5 rue de Berri. Page wrote that she ‘worked under the best French artists at the Académie Julian and found there both guidance and much interest in the companionship of many different nations, and as all the students (about 500) competed in efforts for the medal in painting and sculpture, life was animated’25. Page received a medal for portrait painting.

