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

[athenais.livejournal.com]

But Idahoswede is right, it's totally wrong for the 1780s. The waistline was still close to the natural waist until about 1800.

Lovely portrait, but it isn't likely Jane Austen.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think there's a suggestion that it may be another Jane Austen- a niece or something.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing Ackerman plates with pretty high waists back into the mid-1790s in The Gallery of Fashion but the silhouette's still wrong -- bell-like rather than columnar. On the other hand, "Les Merveilleuses et Incroyables" in the 1790s section here is tantalizing -- the problem is, the dating is so imprecise as to be unhelpful. Anyway, it's still not the 1780s.