Austen portrait not Austen...

Jonathan

Jonathan

VFG Member
http://media.www.dailytexanonline.c...trait.Thought.To.Be.Only.One.In-2809074.shtml

Its interesting that the consignor, auction house and a 'I want it to be' Austen scholars are disregarding the costume information in this portrait as unimportant as a means to dating the portrait. There is nothing about this costume that could possibly date it to 1790, it is 1805ish and that is not a portrait of a 30 year old woman, even by the kindest brushstrokes of a blind artist.
 
Of course they don't want to look at facts, that diminishes the importance of the piece and makes the folks look silly.


The picture reminds me of Ang/Dorotheascloset's portrait of "Jean" from an estate buy she had a while back.
 
Thanks for pointing this out, Jonathan! As an ex-lit major, seeing images (real or alleged) of Jane Austen affects me the way a unicorn sighting might...

At last summer's "Jewelry camp" (aka the Antique and Period Jewelry Conference), there was a presentation on vintage fashion and how it influenced jewelry design and trends in each era. One slide showed this watercolor Austen portrait, in which she looks much more stylish (and rich!) than I imagined her:

http://www.artworksgallery.co.uk/book.html

And a sketched portrait, supposedly by Austen's sister, which hangs in the England's National Portrait Gallery, supposedly establishes that she wasn't much of a looker; it was apparently airbrushed for use on the cover of a biography on her (didn't anyone consider maybe it wasn't Austen's looks but her sister's mediocre draughtsmanship that made her look so frumpy?):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6484281.stm

I will be watching further developments on this with great interest!
 
I can't believe they dismissed Aileen Riberio's statement about it being early 19th century clothing (which is OBVIOUS to anyone who collects antique costume) as "dismissed such evidence as insubstantial and casual."

LOL!

Lei
 
Well good grief. Not everyone is blessed with excellent features or perfect hair. She didn't exactly live in the era of Cover Girl and Aqua Net, Botox and nose jobs.
 
I believe in Jane's letters she laments at how plain she is. Most of her heroines are plain looking but sensible -- I suspect she was living out her romantic fantasies through her writing. In Pride and Prejudice, it was her older sister Jane who was the looker, and in Mansfield Park, the heroine is written as plain and sober looking with little sense of humour and none of the attractions of a fashionable young woman. I don't recall how Emma was described but one assumes she was described as pretty if they cast Gwyneth Paltrow and Alicia Silverstone as her in films -- however it was her personality that was the problem, not her looks.

WOmen were kind of screwed then if they didn't have the looks because without make-up you had to fall back on figure, personality and social graces to get you through.
 
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