Is This Jane Austen?

[poliphilo]

This is the Rice portrait of the teenage Jane Austen which is being sold at Christie's today. 

Is it authentic ? 

Hmmmmmm. 

It's supported by oral tradition but...

...Some people think the frock is all wrong for the 1780s.

Short of going back in a Tardis we're never going to know.

But it's pretty, isn't it?

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've seen adult fashions that look like that dating earlier than the mid 1790s, and in general, children's fashions are likely to have looked like smaller versions of adult fashions. So, on the whole, to me it seems highly unlikely that it's Jane Austen unless it's Jane Austen in 1795 or later.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about costume to be anything but agnostic. :)