“Sada Yacco” by William Nicholson

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Sada Yacco

William Nicholson

c. 1902

Chromolithograph after the original woodcut

10 7/8 x 10 in. (27.7 x 25,6 cm.)

Inscribed on the stone, upper left, 'William Nicholson' and beneath, 'Sado Yacco'

Collection: Liss Fine Art

See commentary below

With thanks to Liss Fine Art for allowing us to include this image and accompanying text. Readers may wish to consult their website.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Liss Fine Art and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

Sada Yacco was the Japanese actress who modelled for Rodin and one of the characters selected for the second series of Twelve Portraits . Heinemann sent Nicholson a list of suggested sitters in July 1901, but work on the project proceeded very slowly and it was not until the summer of 1902 that the portraits were finally delivered. Nicholson, always ready to re-use existing material, commandeered his Lord Kitchener (1898) and William II (1899) for this series (the latter was published in a slightly revised form), and also made use of studies of Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain made in New York in the autumn of 1900. The remaining seven portraits were conceived and executed in 1901/2: Queen Alexandra; Joseph Chamberlain (Colonial Secretary at the time of the Boer War), Li-Hung Chang (the Chinese statesman), Henrik Ibsen (whose plays Heinemann published in English translations), Sada Yacco (the Japanese actress who modelled for Rodin), Eleonora Dose (the great Italian tragedienne), and Pope Leo XIII.

Created 30 January 2015