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

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by the idea that this might have been retouched to bring the costume up to date- or into conformity with someone's idea of what Jane should have been wearing.

I don't think we can put to much weight on Jane's own taste in clothes. This is after all a portrait of a child and I imagine teenagers in the 1780s pretty much wore what Mama told them to wear.

[amberb-uk.livejournal.com]

Judging the time by our contemporary views of childhood would be wrong.

Personal taste in clothes being a factor depends a lot on the age of the child in question. From their mid teens when girls and boys were 'out' in Society, they wore what *they* chose to wear, rather than having clothes their parents or family chose for them.

Girls also were in the habit of making and trimming their own clothing and even if from well-off families and they would have had a hand in choosing the fabric and trim for their garments. It wasn't all done by servants or trade.

With a climate of increasing town-based living and socialising during Austen's lifetime, girls learned about fashion and taste within the home and from the family's contacts before going out into Society so there would be some familial influence, but not in the way you imagine (in my experience).

Such things were considered as accomplishments and not 'beneath' a lady of the middle class or above :-) Though of course specialist dressmakers would create garments that required fitting, such as stays (corsetry) and you could buy ready-made trim (passmenterie) to make fashion easier to achieve.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, what you say does accord with what (little) I know about Austen's world.

I believe you're right and I'm wrong.

So you think this kind of gown isn't the kind of thing Jane would have chosen for herself?

I've just posted a copy of the Stanier Clarke portrait which shows a woman of high fashion who might just possibly be Jane. I'd be interested to know what you think of it.

[amberb-uk.livejournal.com]

Don't know whether it's Jane Austen or not, but it looks more like period fashion plates from Ackerman's - the line of the body, proportions of the garments in relation to each other etc etc. There's also plenty of colour around the head and shoulders, which is very much a period 'look' (there are loads of great colour plates of period clothing at Jessamyn's Regency Costume Companion http://www.songsmyth.com/linksgenuinegarments.html)

I wasn't really trying to say Austen wouldn't have chosen a white gown, but more that the Victorians imagined their mothers and grandmothers didn't wear anything but virginal white and the way the sleeves are done in the portrait above smacks of later ideas on dress 'back then'.

It was also far more rare for women to wear white than we imagine. Georgian women were very fond of using pattern and trim, even if that meant using whitework embroidery or spotted/sprigged muslin to adorn a plain white gown. I was also trying to say that the dandyism associated with Mr Brummel started early for both girls and boys and Miss Austen was never averse to those attitudes ;-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I too thought it looked a bit like a fashion plate. And for all we know Stanier Clarke may have been recording a costume that impressed him rather than attempting a portrait.

Bah, why didn't he label it?

The Rice portrait failed to make its reserve. That says it all really. If people had been convinced it was Jane Austen I think bidding would have gone through the roof.

It would be good if someone were now to submit it to an exhaustive examination. When was it painted? Has it been retouched or reworked? I'd love to know.

[oakmouse]

"Girls also were in the habit of making and trimming their own clothing"

Excellent point, of course, and we know Jane did so; she was famed for her skills with a needle and for making beautiful clothing.