Sarah Bernhardt as "La Samaritaine"
Framed: 75 1/4 × 30 inches (191.14 × 76.2 cm)
- 128
Paris: A Collage, University of Kansas, Student Union Gallery, Lawrence, KS, January 25–February 13, 1976, no 54.
Posters and Modern Color Prints, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 5–December 29,1985, no. 16.
Art on the Avenues: Posters from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 16–July 28, 1996, no. 15.
Art of Advertising, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 22–July 17, 2011, no cat.
Mucha’s Muses: Sarah Bernhardt and the Spirit of Art Nouveau, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 31, 2026–January 17, 2027, no cat.
Sarah Bernhardt collaborated with Alphonse Mucha to create this poster for her role in the biblical story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Her robe slips from her shoulder, her hair swirling around her hips. Mucha portrays Bernhardt as both a saint with a halo and a Jewish woman surrounded by six-pointed stars.
Bernhardt, whose first name appears in Hebrew above the crouched man, was born to a Jewish mother but raised a Catholic. To audiences at this time, these details evoked the dual religious identities of both Bernhardt and her character.
Friends of Art Sales and Rental Gallery, Kansas City, MO;
Purchased from the Sales and Rental Gallery by Milton (1903–1980) and Barbara (née James, 1905–1996) McGreevy, Shawnee Mission, KS, by June 12, 1962;
Their gift, through the Westport Fund, to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1962.
Paris: A Collage, exh. cat. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 1976), unpaginated.
Ann Bridges, ed., Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Graphic Works (London: Academy Editions, 1980), no. A15, p. 153, as La Samaritaine.
Jack Rennert and Alain Weill, Alphonse Mucha: The Complete Posters and Panels (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984), no. 24, pp. 118–21, as La Samaritaine.
Posters and Modern Color Prints, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1985), 7, as Sarah Bernhardt as “La Samaritaine”.
Art on the Avenues: Posters from the Permanent Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 5, as Sarah Bernhardt as “La Samaritaine”.
George L. McKenna, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Prints 1460–1995 (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in association with The University of Washington Press, 1996), 298, (repro.), as Sarah Bernhardt as “La Samaritaine”.
