Listen to co-curator Juliette Wells discuss authentic and disputed portraits of Jane Austen.
PROUD PROFESSIONAL
In July 1809 the Austen women and their friend Martha Lloyd took up residence in Chawton Cottage (now known as Jane Austen’s House). There, both sisters found contentment in their creative pursuits. Cassandra created the only known portrait of Jane from life, a pencil and watercolor sketch. In a period of extraordinary productivity, Jane revised three of her fiction manuscripts and composed another three novels from scratch.
Austen’s long wait to see her work in print was rewarded with the release of Sense and Sensibility in late October 1811. Pride and Prejudice followed in January 1813, Mansfield Park in May 1814, and Emma in December 1815. Praised by reviewers, her novels sold moderately well, and she took great satisfaction in her earnings.
In May 1817, after more than a year of intermittent illness, Austen moved to the city of Winchester to receive medical treatment. She died there on July 18 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published together that December. An accompanying biographical essay written by her brother Henry publicly revealed her identity for the first time.
Cassandra Austen (1773–1845),
Jane Austen, ca. 1810.
Graphite and watercolor.
National Portrait Gallery, London; NPG 3630.
Photo: © National Portrait Gallery, London / Art Resource, New York.
Unlike wealthy people who were famous during their lifetimes, Jane Austen never sat for a formal oil portrait. Cassandra’s two watercolor sketches of her sister, one from the front and one from the back, remain the only authentic images of the author. When Cassandra’s portrait of Jane’s face was auctioned in 1948, the American collector Alberta H. Burke had the opportunity to bid on it. She chose not to, describing it as a “hideous object,” and it was bought by the National Portrait Gallery in London, where it remains.
Oscar Fay Adams, when researching his biography of Austen in England, was shown a full-size oil portrait by its owner, John Morland Rice, a great-nephew of Jane Austen’s. Said to depict the young Jane, the work represents, in Adams’s words, “a sweet-faced girl of not more than fifteen.” A photograph of the portrait was reproduced in the second, illustrated edition of Adams’s biography. Known today as the Rice portrait, the artwork is attributed to the artist Ozias Humphrey. Its veracity is disputed, and a 2007 auction resulted in no sale.