Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805 (part 3)
One of the most difficult parts of researching the family of Emma Austen is the fact that Emma’s parents were BOTH named “Smith”. Hard to winnow out relations and non-relations, with so common an English name as SMITH.
Mrs. Charles Smith – Augusta Smith, senior – “Mamma”. She has, from the beginning, been easy to track, because her father, Joshua Smith, was a Member of Parliament (for Devizes) and a landowner. The estate itself causes problems. Spelled Erle Stoke Park; Erlestoke Park; as well as Earl Stoke Park. Alas, the estate exists, and yet doesn’t. The fabric of the building sustained a fire. The estate is now known as HMP – His Majesty’s Prison – Earlstoke (Wiltshire).
Mr. Charles Smith of Suttons – “Papa”. He had one living sister. The Smith of Suttons children called her “Aunt”. This simple appellation has caused others to mistake her for one of several other aunts. But Aunt Northampton, Aunt Chute, Aunt Emma (all are Mamma’s sisters) are accounted for. It is JUDITH SMITH who is forever and always called, simply “Aunt“.
And it is Aunt, who, by 1805, had a quartet of three nieces and a nephew: Augusta (junior), Charles Joshua, Emma, and Fanny, all of whom visited the Smiths at Stratford, Essex. Judith’s mother was still alive, and the two lived together. Mamma sometimes denotes them as “Old Mrs. Smith” and “Miss Smith,” and they are usually noted together. Aunt remained a “Maiden Aunt” all her life. Judith was born in 1754 and was two years older than her brother, who was significantly older than his (second) wife. Augusta, senior had been born in 1772, and was 26 years old at the time of her 1798 marriage; Charles would turn 44 in September of that year. He welcomed his first child – Augusta, junior – in February 1799.
Mamma – who was super close to her own sisters, Maria (born 1767) [Lady Northampton]; Eliza (born 1769) [Mrs. Chute of The Vyne]; and Emma (born 1774) – took a while to cozy up to her sister-in-law.
But Judith had relatives of her own, more SMITHS, of course!
One family, mentioned in Augusta Smith’s 1805 diary, is the Smiths of Malling. Always denoted by the designation “of Malling,” their matriarch is a third portrait in artist John Downman’s albums, “First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons,” held at the British Museum. You can see them online, digitally presented. The “Study for Mrs. Smith of West Malling, Kent, 1805” can also be viewed on the BM website.
Mrs. Smith of Malling presents an interesting case of a young woman, eventually the sole heir of her parents, who seemingly married “for love”. Her full inheritance came through the death of her brother. The Monument Inscription in Meopham gives the unfortunate particulars:
Hither soon followed them
their son WILLIAM, the heir of their fortunes
and their virtues; a fair inheritance:
but alas of their mortality too.
which lot befel him at the early age of 28
April the 12th 1761
‘He died of the small pox
unhappily procured by
inoculation’
Known as “the heiress of Camer,” Katherine (or Catherine) MASTERS married William SMITH of Croydon. Through her came her father’s estate of Camer.
And with her came a slot in the family vault for her husband.
As Downman noted, Mrs. Smith of West Mallling was a widow with numerous children. Her husband died in 1764, aged only 44. He (and his family) are buried at Meopham (in Kent). I have found two sons and two daughters of the reported six children (three of each sex), “all in their infancy,” who remained at the time of their father’s death.
- Rebecca: born 1750, she died in 1802. Mamma mentioned her death in her diary – it was Rebecca’s obituary that enabled me to find more information on the family as a whole. Her obituary says she died after a lengthy illness (which could indicate cancer);
- Catherine: born 1752, she died in 1777;
- George [of Camer]: born 1757; he died in 1831;
- William [of Fairy Hall, Kent]: born 1759; he died in 1830.
William Smith (senior) was related to Charles Smith’s father – Charles Smith of Stratford (Essex), who wrote on the Corn Laws (he died in 1777). His widow, “Old” Mrs. Smith of Stratford, lived until 1808. From Augusta Smith’s diaries, including this one of 1805, “Aunt” (Judith Smith) often visited the Smiths of Malling, and she must have lost a good friend in “Miss Smith of Malling” (Rebecca), when she died.
A 1940 article by Edward Croft Murray from The British Museum Quarterly (vol. 14, no. 3; pp. 60-66) describes these Downmen albums – and gives their background history. The albums, “not sketch-books in the strict sense of the word,” are where “the artist mounted his delicately drawn ‘First Studies’ … with their dates, the names of the sitters, and usually some comments on them, all in his [Downman’s] own handwriting.” Anyone looking at the BM images can see the truth of that statement, but it is mind-blowing to learn:
- “These albums were originally arranged by Downman in four series, more or less in chronological sequence, each series containing four to eight volumes, and each volume between about twenty-five and thirty-five drawings“;
- “Series i is said to have been sold previously [before 1825-1827] and the original eight volumes belonging to it dispersed, some of them having been broken up and their contents scattered even further among various collections”;
- “Vols 1 and 3 of this Series [Series i] however, are still intact, and were sold .. at Sotheby’s on 15 February 1922, passing eventually to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in 1938″.
The Fitzwilliam provides a physical description of an album in their collection as, “Red leather coverboards with gold tooling. Green end papers and boards. 61 sheets in total including 26 protection papers [these are usually “tissue-like], bound in. Pages are gold edged. Contained 30 drawings, each laid onto the recto of a folio sheet.”
Downman himself said the albums denoted his “pleasant Employment of many Years; and in this assemblage of Portraits, you will see how different Fashions change ….” He admitted that he had “no Idea of a Collection ’till I found insensibly the Accumulation.” Indeed! Can you imagine the ENTIRE collection as he and his daughter Isabella Chloe (later Mrs. Benjamin) knew it???
Ah, the “lost” portraits! I second the author’s wish for a publication of ALL extant drawings.
Further information, related to the Quarterly article:
- “How Downman drew ‘The Larking Family’” (The Connoisseur, Sept 1926)
- G.C. Williamson’s book, John Downman A.R.A.: His Life and Works (1907)
- Lady Northampton, 1779; by Downman [Jane Compton, née Lawton, the 8th Countess; Uncle Northampton’s mother]
- Other Downman images from the Fitzwilliam Museum
By the way, the Sir Robert Cunliffe of Acton Hall, Wrexham, mentioned in the articles, was a relation to Mary Gosling – with Emma my “Two Teens in the Time of Austen” – through her maternal grandfather, Sir Ellis Cunliffe.
For the woman born Katherine Manners, Mrs Smith of West Malling: her heirs “founded” the familial line of “Smith Masters” and “Masters”. Downman painted in 1805, and Katherine Masters Smith died on 6 February 1814, aged 86 – meaning she had been born circa 1728. No wonder Mamma Smith thought of her as “Old Mrs. Smith of Malling.”
The family who outlived Katherine called her “their excellent mother.” Downman, a West Malling neighbor, must have agreed with that assessment. He wrote below her portrait that she “well managed” her family.
* * *
Part 1 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
New Portrait: Percy Gore (1794)
Emma writes much of her Currie cousin, little Percy-Gore Currie. Sister Fanny Smith stayed at East Horsley with the William Curries during part of the long illness of patriarch Charles Smith in 1814.
So today it was thrilling to see an image of Mrs. William Currie, (née Gore), people with whom Fanny passed several weeks, not knowing (she was only 10 years old), that she had seen the last of her dear father.
An early letter, written in October 1813 from Horsley was a JOINT letter, semt to Fanny by Papa as well as Mamma. While all the siblings kept various letters of Mamma, few letters survive from Papa Smith. The few that do, written to his children, present a doting, loving father. Unfortunately, he never met nor saw his youngest child, Maria — born days after his death.
In October, 1813, Papa tells Fanny that the countryside around East Horsley (Surrey), the Curries estate, is “delightful” and that Mamma is particularly drawn to it, having spent “the early part of her life” hereabouts. He equates the age of Mamma then as being about the age of Fanny now. So a young girl indeed. Mamma was born, the third daughter of her parents (Joshua and Sarah Smith, of Erlestoke Park, Devizes) in 1772. So the time would be around 1782, a good twelve years before Miss Gore joined the family.
Since Mamma’s 1814 letter to Fanny asks her to give “My love to Mrs. Currie,” it is probable that Mrs. Currie received an additional letter (not located, alas!) telling her of Mr. Smith’s death – and asking her to break the news to Fanny.
Percy, Mrs. Currie, would have been twenty years older than the powdered, willowy woman we see. But the face is kindly, and quietly reassuring. Fanny would have had as playmate Percy’s daughter, Percy-Gore, about two years younger than Fanny.
The portrait, by John Russell, is described in its 2015 auction offering, as “pastel with touches of gouache on paper; 35 11/16 x 27 3/4 inch). You can read the description for yourself at Bonhams.
Neil Jeffares’ “Pastellists before 1800” has a short write-up; it seems to intimate that the portrait did not sell in 2015 and was relisted the following year (at a lower estimate), when it evidently sold.
I cannot say ENOUGH about how seeing people from my research project spurs me on to dig deeper. I began – and this was how I found Percy Currie – in looking for information on her daughter Percy-Gore, for I found that she married into a family whose eldest siblings were greatly admired for their musical talents by eldest sibling Augusta Smith. Now I have the task to look up BOTH Mother and Daughter, and to see what the letters and diaries of the Smiths have to say about the Curries. Of interest, too, of course, is finding more about East Horsley, especially as Mamma Smith once knew it so well.
A MYSTERY =>
The British Museum has put up an image of a “Mrs. Currie” by Downman (dated 1791, which would be three years before her marriage), makes me wonder: IS the sitter Percy Gore?
Morgan Library: Gainsborough
In my email today was notice that The Morgan Library in New York City has opened their exhibit: Thomas Gainsborough: Experiments in Drawing, which runs until August 19, 2018.
(click the photo for more information from The Morgan about their exhibition)
More than twenty works “reveal the artist’s technical innovations, his mastery of materials, and his development of a new and original mode of drawing.”
Also planned are Lunchtime Lectures, such as this one coming up on May 16th:
GAINSBOROUGH EXPERIMENTS: CORK, BROCCOLI, MILK, AND DRAWING THE LANDSCAPE
This lecture is a ticketed event ($15, but free for Morgan Library Members and student with valid ID); available online. For times and access information, see their website.
The Gainsborough exhibit has an exhibition catalogue, too! An 84-page paperback, for $20.
Zoffany’s Daughter
A reader of my Ladies of Llangollen blog brought to my attention a new book published in Australia and the UK: Zoffany’s Daughter: Love and Treachery on a Small Island, by Prof. Stephen Foster. She described it as, “quite unusual, as it combines History, Fact, and Fiction.”
The book’s website gives an enticing introduction: “2nd July 1825: Cecilia Zoffany, daughter of a famous artist, flees to the island of Guernsey with her two young daughters, one of them disguised as a boy. Alone and distressed, the beautiful stranger seeks the help of locals in a desperate attempt to retain the custody of her children. Her estranged husband, a London clergyman, follows close behind.”
Cecilia Horne is the second daughter of famed artist, Johan Zoffany. Born in 1780, she married the Rev. Thomas Horne on 27 June 1799; Zoffany painted a portrait of his father (another Rev. Thomas Horne). After eight children, the couple separated in 1821. Of course, at the time, British law gave custody of children to the father.
- read a review, at ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
- the book’s Amazon.uk page
- The Ladies Monthly Museum magazine, features news of the trial of “Mrs. Cecilia Zoffany, wife of Mr. Horne”
- Investigate the “Rice Portrait,” possibly illustrating the young Jane Austen, which was once believed to have been painted by Zoffany
Jane Austen BookBenches
“Sitting with Jane” was a summertime (17 June-30 August) installation of artist-produced benches that created a 24-stop Jane Austen trail. Last month (15 September 2017) the benches were sold at auction, raising funds for The Ark Cancer Centre Charity.
WHERE will the Jane Austen Trail benches turn up next?!?
I wish I had found this project earlier! The “Trail” looks so fun…
If you’re an ‘app’-person, there’s an app for it: available (or was available…) on iTunes and Google Play. The rest of us can “follow” on an old-fashioned MAP.
For those of us now having to let our eyes do the walking online, there ARE illustrations of the benches.
This bench, entitled DANCING WITH JANE, by Michelle Heron, was situated outside the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke.
As you see, the benches were “open books” in design, and the artists got to embellish them any way they wished. Michelle Heron was “inspired by regency dancing and the balls that Jane and characters in her novels attended, with a backdrop of a manuscript from her last fully completed novel, Persuasion.”
JANE AND HER FORGOTTEN PEERS, by Amy Goodman, was situated near Winchester Cathedral – where _I_ have enjoyed several “dining with Jane Austen” meals (though not on the Jane Austen bench, of course). Caroline Fairbairne painted TWO benches, one located in Chawton (entitled CHAWTON WOODWALK); while the other graced the area of Steventon Church (DO YOU DANCE, MR. DARCY?).
Oakley Hall (home of the Bramstons in Jane Austen’s time) gave people the opportunity of WAITING FOR MR. DARCY (by Traci Moss). But I must admit to rather liking the refreshing joke behind Mik Richardson‘s ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? at Worting House.
Please don’t sit on my book!
Old Artists, Faded Art
One of the most difficult things to accomplish is the identification of portraits. Too many portraits who remain unnamed. Merely, “Portrait of a Gentleman” or “Portrait of a Lady”.
Also “unnamed” – sometimes – are the small-scale artists. For instance, I have a will which gave the TANTALIZING news that family portraits existed (at least up to 1814). But who was the painter?
“all the Family Pictures painted by Mr. Fold[s…]”
For the life of me I could NOT read the last few letters of the name…
But, while researching for my upcoming article on James Boswell and the city of Chester, I came across this book – and offer it as an excellent place to look up some SMALL Artists, a DICTIONARY of exhibitors from The Society of Artists of Great Britain and The Free Society of Artists, compiled by Algernon Graves (published in 1907):
I’ll give a special prize to the first reader to email me (smithandgosling [dot] gmail [dot] com) with the ONE exhibitor of paramount interest, a Smith & Gosling relative, who appears in Graves’ line-up.
NB: the artist’s name in the will extract may be John FOLDSONE (father of Anne Mee). Foldsone was described in 1808 as “A painter of portraits in oils, small heads, of no great merit, but with sufficient likeness to procure much employment at a small price. His practice was to attend his sitters at their dwellings.” (He was not alone in this practice, actually.)
Spending Time at The Vyne
Why is it: the Best FINDS are found around midnight or 2 AM?
Last night I found that the National Trust has been BUSY photographing artwork and posting them on their National Trust Collections site. FINALLY! we can see some flower paintings of Eliza Chute, Augusta Smith (her sister), and their teacher Miss Meen (Margaret Meen).
- NB: I do not believe Miss Meen was a governess to the girls (see my online article at Academia: “Margaret Meen: A Life in Four Letters“).
Alas! isn’t there ALWAYS confusion when more than one person has similar or exactly the SAME NAME?!?
The Vyne is uncertain, for instance, who painted one “scene” picture – Eliza Chute, or the wife of William Wiggett (who later took the name Wiggett Chute in order to inherit); their daughter was also an Eliza Chute (1843-1913). Her pictures of The Vyne are simply charming.
- see all images sorted by the search term “Elizabeth Chute“
There IS one “scene” picture that they DO attribute to Eliza Chute (Mrs. William Chute), called A Roadside Halt. Emma’s “Aunt Chute” WAS known as an adept painter, and did practice by copying “old masters”, for example in the art collection of neighbor the Duke of Wellington.
But it is the Floral Paintings that I am most excited to see, for instance this undated work inscribed (pencil) “Eliz. Smith Chute” = which, without seeing it up close, could be in Eliza’s hand, or could be a later hand (not that I doubt it was painted by her, just that she may not have signed it herself).
Watercolor on Vellum
I suspect, between the fact that the Smith Sisters of Erle Stoke Park (Maria, Eliza, Augusta, and Emma [later: Lady Northampton, Aunt Chute, Mamma, and Aunt Emma]), were busy in the 1790s, around the time of Eliza’s marriage, producing various Flower Paintings while in the company of Miss Meen, and the fact that it’s ID’ed as “Smith Chute”, that it probably dates from early in this period. It’s unusual for Eliza to use both her maiden and married names.
- compare Eliza’s flower paintings at The Vyne with those at The Royal Horticultural Society (afraid you have to work for this one: use the SEARCH function and type in Elizabeth Chute or Elizabeth Smith).
- See other “artwork done by” (more links), on this blog.
Some Flowers are very in the style of Miss Meen – for instance the Asclepia Giganticus Pentandria Digynia, signed “El. S. 1785”. But others seem their own sweet style – like the Amaryllis, which has to date before September 1793 [when she married William Chute] if it is signed “El. S.”
Born in 1768, Eliza was still in her teens in 1785!
There is even one, called Log and Red Berries, worked by BOTH Eliza Chute AND Margaret Meen.
- search National Trust for Margaret Meen’s own botanicals.
Problems arise with the works of Augusta Smith — is it the daughter Augusta (whom they ID by her married name, Augusta Wilder), or is the artist Mamma?
Watercolor on Vellum
This is – judged from afar (though I am NO expert on artist identifications) – said to date from 1820-1836. The cut-off is obvious: Augusta Wilder, Emma’s eldest sister, died in the summer of 1836. The back merely says “Augusta Smith” (which of course she would NOT have been after 1829, when she married! so the dating is still erroneous.)
Other Botanicals are a much easier call, and are clearly misattributed – little Augusta was not painting florals at the age of 4 or 5, and there are works identified (for instance) as “Suttons, 1803”. Even worse: “Turnera Ulmifolio Pentandria Trigynia by Augusta Smith, Mrs Henry Wilder (1799-1836). (in ink). AS 1787.” So prodigious a child was little Augusta, that she painted TWELVE YEARS before she was even born!?! Don’t think so…
Emma, by the way, began lessons with Miss Meen in February 1815, aged 13.
- Fuschia, painted “Suttons November 1804”
- Spray of Cuphea painted “Suttons August 1803”
- see all “Augusta Smith” images at The Vyne
The images at the Royal Horticultural Society must be searched for, but all the Four Sisters of Erle Stoke Park (and their instructress, Margaret Meen) are represented. Emma Smith (“Aunt Emma”) is actually represented by an online “gallery” of work. Twenty nine images (currently) come up if you search for the term Joshua Smith — because the girls are ID’ed as his daughters! You can toggle the image display so the instructive text comes up beside each image, which is highly useful.
Online Gallery: John Hassell
Doesn’t it always happen this way: late at night, searching for something else, and up pops some USEFUL item on the internet.
Last night it was locating some lovely drawings of the Surrey artist John Hassell (1767-1827). “Exploring Surreys Past” has a fine “exhibition” of his works, sorted geographically. A lot of country churches and country estates, including one (1822) of Botleys – the future home of Mary’s brother, Robert Gosling.
Botleys (in Chertsey), still exists! You can get a peek inside, via this “wedding venue” site. For me, the most evocative photo is one that includes the outside “double sweep” stairs:
I have a photograph, from the 1860s, in which all of Robert’s family is seated around the base of the stairs. Robert Gosling is center; his wife Georgina Vere Sullivan to one side – it was the first time I had ever seen a picture (never mind a photograph!) of dear Georgina. She is mentioned with frequency in Mary’s diaries. Their children and grandchildren – and even a pet or two – are ringed around and above them. I see them, even in the “empty” photograph above.
Jane Austen’s (family) Portraits
In a follow-up to the news of the Sotheby’s sale, I’ve pulled out the one source I have that discusses this very portrait’s “reason for being”: Deirdre Le Faye’s (2nd ed.) Jane Austen: A Family Record.
Near the end of the book, the genesis of James Edward Austen Leigh’s biography, A Memoir of Jane Austen, is treated. It is a rather disappointing story, from the view of the Memoir‘s author: his two sisters were most giving and generous. However, his eldest sister, the former Anna Austen [born 1793] now long the widowed Mrs Lefroy, declared how little she remembered! But then, after sitting down with her pen and paper and exercising her recollections, she did come up with a highly entertaining narrative. Hard to be harsh with Anna: how many of us will recall people from our past, sixty years later?
Edward’s younger sister Caroline Mary Craven Austen [born 1805] also supplied her memories for her brother to incorporate as he wished. Her piece was later published as My Aunt Jane Austen.
Other sources were, of course, attempted. According to Le Faye, “Rather surprisingly, it seems that even at this late date Anna [Lefroy] still did not know that Cassandra had kept Jane’s letters and distributed some of them to the younger nieces, for she wrote to her brother [James Edward Austen Leigh, born 1798]: ‘The occasional correspondence between the Sisters when apart from each other would as a matter of course be destroyed by the Survivor — I can fancy what the indignation of Aunt Cassa. would have been at the mere idea of its being read and commented upon by any of us….'”
Anna also wrote to her brother, “‘You must have it in your own power to write something; & Caroline, though her recollections cannot go as far back even as your’s, is, I know acquainted with some particulars… [they] were communicated to her by the best of then living Authorities, Aunt Cassandra — There may be other sources of information, if we could get at them — Letters may have been preserved’.”
“As far as letters held by other branches of the family were concerned James Edward’s approaches met with only limited success.” Le Faye then details that one of Frank Austen’s son’s “knew that no letter to Henry had been kept”, and that Frank’s daughter Fanny Sophia “had destroyed [Jane’s letters to Frank], following his death in 1865, without consulting anyone else beforehand.” Martha Lloyd Austen’s (Lady Austen) letters had come into Frank’s hands, and “it was one of these that he sent to the Quincy family in 1852 — but how many more of them may have been in his possession at that date is unknown.”
Fanny Sophia was willing to let Edward look at the few letters she had retained, “but only on the condition that he did not publish any”. He evidently did not, therefore, take her up on the offer.
Then there comes the tale of Lady Knatchbull, the former Fanny Knight. “She was now drifting into querulous senility and could not — perhaps would not — remember where she had put her letters from Jane.” These, which Edward did not live to see published, came out in 1884 in the so-called Brabourne edition (vol. 1) [other works by Brabourne, including vol. 2 of Jane Austen’s letters, at Internet Archive].
Certainly, Edward Austen had done the best any biographer can try to do, in amassing all the known “primary materials”.
So what of the portraits?!?
“After these disappointments, the help which James Edward received from Cassy Esten, Charles’s eldest daughter, must have been particularly welcome. She allowed him to use those of Jane’s letters which she had inherited in 1845, and it was she who proffered the two simple watercolour sketches by Cassandra…” These two being the “Sketch” (now at the National Portrait Gallery” and the “Bonnet Portrait”, the view of Austen, sitting out-of-doors, where her face is obscured by her bonnet. “Anna thought there was ‘a good deal of resemblance’ in the figure of the latter, but that the former was ‘so hideously unlike’.”
Henry had admitted “in 1832 when Bentley wanted a likeness [of Jane Austen] for his new edition of the novels” that “no professional artist has ever painted Jane’s portrait at any time in her life”. {But did Henry know “all” about his sister?}
“James Edward commissioned a local artist, James Andrews of Maidenhead, to redraw the Cassandra-portrait, working under the superintendence of himself and his sisters. They considered his version good enough to appear in the Memoir, and a stipple vignette was steel-engraved from this watercolour to use as the frontispiece.”
“Those members of the family who had known Jane best were on the whole rather disappointed by the frontispiece. Casey Esten [born in 1808] wrote ‘I think the portrait is very much superior to any thing that could have been expected from the sketch it was taken from. — It is a very pleasing, sweet face, — tho’, I confess, to not thinking it much like the original; – but that the public will not be able to detect…’ Caroline was equally lukewarm: ‘The portrait is better than I expected — as considering its early date, and that it has lately passed through the hands of painter and engraver – I did not reckon upon finding any likeness — but there is a look which I recognise as hers — and though the general resemblance is not strong, yet as it represents a pleasant countenance it is so far a truth – & I am not dissatisfied with it.’
Lizzy Rice [born 1800], now a stately matriarch, wrote from Kent to James Edward: ‘I remember her so well & loved her so much & her books always were and always will be my delight … how well the portrait has been lithographed I think it very like only the eyes are too large, not for beauty but for likeness, I suppose making them so was Aunt Cassandra’s tribute of affection…’.”
Caroline agreed with the comment about the portrait’s eyes: “‘they are larger than the truth: that is, rounder, & more open – I am very glad she sees a general likeness tho’—‘.”
Mrs Beckford, the former Charlotte Maria Middleton, a Chawton neighbor, “considered that: ‘Jane’s likeness is hardly what I remember there is a look, & that is all…’.” Le Faye records no comments – and perhaps none exist, from Emma or Edward Austen Leigh, regarding the portraits.
Sotheby’s: Jane Austen Portrait
Got wind of a very informative article at ArtDaily.org – discussing the Austen portrait that sold at auction today. The BIG Mystery: Who purchased the portrait?!?
- New York Times’ blog quotes that Chawton’s Jane Austen’s House Museum felt they could not raise the required funds (estimated to fetch £150,000 to £200,000) after purchasing Jane Austen’s ring.
- Death Threats over the £10 Bill portrait?
- Lotta Jane Austen on the block!
The ArtDaily article offers a “behind the scenes” idea as to how Cassandra Austen‘s little drawing (now at the National Portrait Gallery, London) was used to produce the watercolor (ie, Sotheby’s auction item), which, in turn, was made into the etching that graced as frontispiece the Memoir of Jane Austen, written by her nephew James Edward Austen Leigh (husband to my Emma!).
The watercolor portrait has been in family hands – and rarely seen. So, for me, it’s a thrill to see a decent image of the little portrait. Letters have recorded what Edward and his sisters thought of the work of watercolorist James Andrews. That discussion will be Part II – unless the mystery owner is revealed! Gotta wonder if the buyer – if outside the UK – is prepared for backlash. After the furor Kelly Clarkson’s purchase of the Jane Austen ring aroused, it is unlikely the portrait would not arouse the same.
- If you owned this portrait – could you have sold it?
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 