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]

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.