Sarah Henrietta Purser RHA (22 March 1848 – 7 August 1943) was an Irish artist mainly noted for her portraiture.

[2] She was one of the numerous children of Benjamin Purser, a prosperous flour miller and brewer, and his wife Anne Mallet.

[citation needed] At thirteen, she attended the Moravian school, Institution Evangélique de Montmirail, Switzerland, where she learnt to speak fluent French and began painting.

[6] From 1878 to 1879, she studied at the Académie Julian in Paris where she met the German painter Louise Catherine Breslau,[7] with whom she became a lifelong friend.

[8] Sarah Purser became wealthy through astute investments, particularly in Guinness, for which several of her male relatives had worked over the years.

Michael Healy was the first of a number of distinguished recruits, such as Catherine O'Brien, Evie Hone, Wilhelmina Geddes, Beatrice Elvery, Ethel Rhind, or the Belgian painter Marthe Donas.

Two early works, 1904, were St. Ita for St. Brendan's Cathedral, Loughrea and The Good Shepherd for St. Columba's College, Dublin.

An Túr Gloine archive is held in the Centre for the Study of Irish Art, National Gallery of Ireland.