The Many Faces of Jane
Several Alert Janeites, including Sandra, Lois, Amanda, Julie, and Arwen, sent us an article about the “Rice Portrait,” which is being auctioned at Christie’s next month as a portrait of Jane Austen. The Rice Portrait certainly is not, as the headline of the article claims, the only known portrait of Jane Austen; that title properly belongs to the portrait by Cassandra Austen owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London. The provenance of the Rice portrait has been disputed by Austen scholars for years.
Depicting a girl of about 15 standing in a landscape, clad in a white dress and holding a green parasol, the painting is believed to have been commissioned around 1790 by Austen’s great-uncle Francis.
“People who knew her — nephews and nieces — say it’s her,” said Piers Davies, an expert in old master paintings at Christie’s. “It is a compelling image.”
More compelling still is the seller: Henry Rice, who is related to Austen through her third brother, Edward. “I inherited the portrait from my father, who died in 1973, and it has always been in my family,” Mr. Rice said in a telephone interview from his home in West Dorset, England. “All the arguments that it is not of Austen are very weak.”
JASNA News published an article about it a few years back, about which the Editrix wrote at her personal weblog.
I saw Cassandra’s miniature last year when the National Portrait Gallery’s Regency collection was sent on a tour of the U.S. while that wing of the gallery was being renovated. It was totally worth seven hours of driving in one day to get to the Yale Center for British Art to see it. We got to stand with our faces about six inches away from the little painting and really look it over. I’ve never understood the visceral hatred for that portrait amongst Janeites. So Jane looks cranky. I can tell you that the drawing, to me, appears unfinished; perhaps Jane grew tired of sitting for it, perhaps Cassandra got fed up with her crankiness and completed the miniature with a few strokes of her pencil and a wash of watercolors; but I can tell you that the face, eyes, nose and hair are finished in astonishingly minute and beautiful detail, detail that doesn’t come across in photographs. Cassandra was a skilled miniaturist; had she finished that portrait of Jane, we would need no other.
Short version: we don’t buy it. It’s a definite maybe, but still a maybe as far as we are concerned. Your mileage, of course, may vary. 
We also would like to point out that the National Portrait Gallery is hardly making a killing off Cassandra’s portrait, as we purchased a humongous poster-sized version in the Gallery gift shop for the princely sum of one pound.
We have long suspected that the dislike of and refusal to accept Cassandra’s portrait as “definitive” and the search for anything better is a bit of Jane-love run amok. The impulse is not terrible. We Janeites want to believe that Jane Austen was a pretty woman; it is the most natural instinct in the world. However, as Jane herself said, she did not write for such dull elves as have not a good imagination themselves. Can’t we accept Cassandra’s portrait, and just imagine that face lit by humor and animation and color? Are we, as Janeites, such pictures of intellectual poverty?
All that being said, we wish the owner much luck in disposing of the portrait for a good price. We’ve seen much uglier stuff on Antiques Roadshow valued for tens of thousands of dollars.
This brings us back to one of yesterday’s topics, the “prettier” portrait of Jane Austen commissioned by Wordsworth Books. Alert Janeite Laurie sent us an article from the Beeb about the Wordsworth portrait and the Rice Portrait, which reveals that the book for which the portrait will be used is a new edition of J.E. Austen-Leigh’s Memoir of his aunt. (You know you can read it online for free, right? And even download it as an e-book in a variety of formats. Just saying.)
March 24th, 2007 at 5:24 am
I never understood why people (or Janeites) have a problem with Cassandra’s portrait. It might not be a very flattering one, but it has so much spirit and originality. Why is it so hard to accept that Jane Austen may not have been a beauty? Or at least no beauty in the sense of today’s meaning of the word. She wrote brilliant, clever, timeless novels, that should be enough to make her attractive. And the success of her books and everything related to them shows very clearly that there is really no need to make her more “appealing”.
I find it very sad that nearly 200 years after J.E. Austen-Leigh’s first venturing to “beautify” his aunt, this is still an issue today. It’s ridiculous even, because that new portrait is still more horrid than the one he commissioned for the first edition of his “Memoir”. Jane Austen looks like a clown with these red cheeks an silly curls.
March 24th, 2007 at 5:27 am
P.S.: I like that sharp, quick look in the original portrait. It suits the tone and humour of her work very well. The “improved” portraits all have a rather sleepy, diffuse expressions about the eyes which I find very annoying.
March 24th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Having seen and studied Cassandra’s portrait in the National Portrait Gallery on many occasions, I would like to say that if you possibly can get to see the original, it is the most beautiful little drawing. It does not reproduce well in books or on postcards, the painting is far more delicate, executed in tiny brush strokes in the palest washes of colour.
As for the Rice Portrait, the face shape, alignment of the eyes and shape of the mouth are very similar to the Jane that Cassandra painted. If they are not the same person I believe they must have been very closely related.
Some of us cannot help ourselves when it comes to painting Jane Austen. My own desire to paint a portrait of her came about because I wanted to see her as the girl she was when she wrote her books and when she fell in love with Tom Lefroy. Cassandra’s depiction of Jane, whilst utterly exquisite does not show a youthful Jane-I hope I will be forgiven in time!
March 24th, 2007 at 7:06 am
There’s another possible portrait of Jane here:
http://www.artworksgallery.co.uk/book.html
March 24th, 2007 at 10:06 am
A few years ago, my husband bought me the book about this portrait which I found fascinating. The little watercolour again looks very much like my idea of Jane Austen. Also, she appears to have a red feather trimming to one side of her bonnet, which looks like one which belonged to Jane Austen. Diana Shervington who is a descendant of the Knight family owns it, along with other precious momentoes. I was lucky enough to see her give a talk in Lyme Regis one year where she showed these beloved treasures.
We will never really know for sure about these paintings, but isn’t it fun to speculate?
March 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Jane, your drawings are done from a place of love–not because Cassandra’s portrait isn’t “good enough.” (At least that’s the impression that I get.) It just seems to me that, from reading a lot of the scholarly arguing over the Rice portrait, many of them are so eager to claim it as Jane because it’s just nicer and more formal than Cassandra’s portrait.
I’m not sure the lady in the “Friendship Book” is Jane Austen but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, as I suspect Stanier-Clarke had a bit of a crush on Jane.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
For the historical fashion experts out there:
Can this Rice painting be accurate? Was this dress possible in 1798 or so?
March 24th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Oh, I’m sorry! Complete mix-up of numbers. My brain originally desired to say, “1789.”
March 24th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Based on my limited knowledge, Prudence, the average dresses of that period would be somewhat different — the waists really rose in the fashion world in the late 1790s. But I’ve seen several exceptions. This one for example — 1782. The difference in her dress may have to do with her age though?
I would be interested in reading the arguments for and against the girl being Jane Austen. The face seems similar, especially in this larger version of the painting.
March 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Yes, I do agree, there does seem to be a ‘need’ for a more acceptable portrait. I think what is frustrating, is that there are all those beautiful ones of her brothers and the only two we have are Cassandra’s quick sketches, the one we have been discussing, and the other enigmatic painting of her with her back towards us. Questions also hang over the little painting of Cassandra which is at Chawton-I am not sure if that has been completely verified. It’s typical really, the men in the family were obviously considered to be far more important.
I was only joking when I asked for forgiveness-just my sense of humour-though I must confess I live in fear of the Cluebat and Sporks!!!
March 24th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I was also wondering about the dress. It’s a Regency dress, to be sure, and I don’t think Jane was so fashionable as to wear it already when she was very young. But on the other hand, perhaps younger people were wearing these kinds of gowns in that period? I have no idea. I’m not really a costume expert!
At first I thought the girls on the Rice painting and the portrait by Cassandra (which also appeared unfinished to me, though I really liked it!) don’t look like each other, but now I see those 2 portraits next to each other I’m beginning to doubt….. It might be Jane, and she also looks pretty in my opinion. But actually, I don’t care if she was pretty or not. It doesn’t make any difference to me, and I don’t think it is of any importance.
By the way, the painting that Amanda linked could be anyone, although I know it is considered by many to be Jane Austen. She might have been modelling for it, but the girl hardly has a face! It’s quite an abstract painting…
March 24th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I just wanted to add that if you compare Cassandra’s portrait with the Rice painting, the proportions of the face are almost identical. Look at the nose and mouth-the space between them is quite short-look at the distance from mouth to chin-a much longer interval this time and again, they are both the same. The eyes and eyebrows seem to follow the same lines and lastly, look at the shoulders on both paintings. They both have very sloping shoulders. Some people have commented on the fact that the girl in the Rice portrait has much straighter hair. As a person with curly hair myself, I would point out that sometimes hair is straighter in pre-adolescence, also Jane might have been styling her hair as she got older, helping her curls along with pins or rags.
As for the dress, there are many paintings which depict children wearing this style from about 1760 onwards. I read some time ago that apparently there was a fashion for green umbrellas in about 1788 which would tie in too.
Of course, none of this proves anything but I think it cannot just be dismissed.
I hope someone buys it and brings it to Chawton.
I am sure you are right about Stanier-Clarke Mags, his crush on Jane might also account for the fact that he didn’t label the painting.
March 24th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I don’t profess to be any kind of authority on the subject of Jane Austen’s appearance; and yes, there is a certain preference that she be pretty. Of course, wishing does not make it so.
However, if it is true, as some posts say, that she was in fact pretty and some relatives said that Cassandra’s portrait was hideous (or some such word), it doesn’t seem to make sense to reject the possibility out of hand that Cassandra’s portrait may not necessarily be a “good” likeness. Some have said the costume in the Rice portrait may be age-appropriate for a girl of 14, and I wouldn’t base too much of my opinion on the texture of her hair; based on my observation of women in general and my daughters in particular, teenage girls with straight hair often want to curl their hair, and the ones with curly hair are often frantic to straighten it. So it could go either way. And her attitudes about hair style as a 35-ish maiden may not be the same as she might have had as a teenager.
I would also wonder why only she would have a portrait done, but the idea that a second-oldest daughter might be seen by a rich relative to need a nice portrait to enhance her marriage possibilities, as one participant in the discussion has noted, does seem a possibility. The boys would need no such help.
Just saying.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Well Jane said what I was going to say, and said it better. I have no trouble believing the girl in the Rice painting grew up to be Jane in Cassandra’s.
As to Cassandra’s Jane: her face may not be considered handsome at first glance but it is rendered uncommonly intelligent by the expression of her dark eyes.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I think that one thing people should take into account is that portraits never were entirely truthful back then - just as they aren’t now. The artistic styles, general taste, what was considered ideal beauty, commissioner’s purporses, they all played part in how people turned out in their likeness. Just think of the portraits of the 18th century; in many pictures, people have dainty features, strange pink complexion and odd body proportions. Good features were played up, less good blurred or faked.
In all of those pictures, Austen has strong eyes and nicely arched brow - her mouth and chin are defined, especially in Cassandra’s drawing. So might that mean she had lovely eyes but thin lips and weak jaw.
But essentially, people’s true attractiviness rarely comes through in a picture - a wrong kind of voice, gestures, spirit, even vocabulary can ruin the entire impression. In that sense, we cannot have any idea how Austen or any person we cannot see alive looked like.
March 24th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
For what it’s worth, Jane Austen’s hair was naturally curly, according to her nephew’s and nieces’ memoirs.
“brown hair forming natural curls close round her face” (J. E. Austen-Leigh)
“Her hair, a darkish brown, curled naturally–it was in short curls round her face (for then ringlets were not.)” (Caroline Austen)
“the fine naturally curling hair, neither light nor dark” (Anna Lefroy)
Two of the three also mentioned she always wore a cap by the time they knew her.
They had different opinions as to her style and degree of beauty.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
It isn’t that easy to straighten curly hair. (I know this from personal experience.) These days we have blowdryers and fancy round brushes (or even ceramic flatirons, which are the big thing right now) and all sorts of products to help us along. They didn’t even have orange juice cans as they used back in the 60s. It simply wouldn’t have been that easy to do with the tools they had. They had metal curling tongs that were heated over an open flame and curl papers/rags to help make straight/wavy hair curl. They used sugar water to help hold styles. Mostly they brushed their hair very well, and since they did not wash their hair daily, brushing distributed the natural oils throughout the hair, which helps with styling. (But I doubt it would have done much to straighten curly hair.)
Jane mentions in her letters that the short hairs around her face curl naturally. She didn’t need to do anything to help them along. It’s possible that the artist painted her hair “straighter,” but why? When curly hair was so prized in those days that they DID torture themselves with hot metal tongs (a form of which is still used today, but is not to be messed with by amateurs) to make their hair curly?
Incidentally, I am a licensed cosmetologist and worked as a hair stylist for ten years or so, though I no longer do it for a living.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
P.S. I think Jane looked a lot like her collateral descendant, Anna Chancellor. I know everyone’s recoiling in horror at the idea of Jane looking like Duckface Bingley, but compare Cassandra’s portrait and see what you think; compare the eyes, mouth, high cheekbones, shape of the face. And Miss Chancellor is certainly not an unattractive woman.
March 25th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Allthough we would like another JA portrait, considering who had been painted in the Austen family and the scoope of these paintings it is unlikely that Jane should have been singled out for a professional painting at an early age. Also the thesis that it should have been paid for by her succesful brother Francis. It most be stated that his succes happened almost 20 years after Jane 14ths birthday. At that time he would have been an ordinary midshipman like William Price. But as there was several cousins in the Austen Leigh fmily it could likely be a relative.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Effy, I think you’re right - it’s unlikely that Jane would have had a portrait commissioned at that age and I think, as others have suggested, that Mr. Rice’s contention (that it was done to give her a leg up in the meat market) is way off base. Marriage was not an issue until the age of sixteen at the earliest. As for being paid for by Francis, the reference is to her great-uncle Francis Austen of Sevenoaks, Kent, not Jane’s brother Francis. I don’t have any books at hand but I think Francis Austen’s dates were approx. 1695-1790.
Mr. Rice is allowed to be irascible & cantankerous at the age of 78, but I’m surprised that he doesn’t know the difference between “you and your family are liars” and “after weighing up decades of research, we think it possibele you might be mistaken.”
Christie’s auctioneers is sufficiently sure of recent research to go ahead with the sale of the painting, by English society artist Ozias Humphry.
“Christie’s supports the Rice portrait as a true depiction of Jane Austen and is honored to have been chosen by the family to organize a public auction,” the company said in a statement.
Two comments. First, we don’t really know the portrait is by Ozias Humphry. Until the mid-twentieth century, the Rice portrait was assumed to be by Johann Zoffany (1733-1810.) Second, I wonder if Christies are choosing their words carefully when they say the portrait is a depiction of Jane Austen .. since expert opinion for many years has surmised that it may well be a portrait of Jane Motley Austen, another granddaughter of Francis Austen.
March 25th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Perhaps it was painted later as an example of what someone thought Jane might have looked like at the age of 14.
I also like Robin’s point about Jane Motley Austen, who might also have been known as simply Jane Austen.
March 25th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I think Mr. Rice’s “familial” feelings may be called into question when he is so vehement about selling the painting in auction, instead of either keeping it in his private collection or donating it for display in various museums.
March 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Let’s not forget that a painting of Jane Austen will very likely bring in more money than a painting of some anonymous girl. That fact may explain Mr. Rice’s determination to proclaim that it is of JA. By the way, I have a bridge for sale. Please contact me through Austen Blog if you are interested.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
“All the arguments that it is not of Austen are very weak.”
Hmm I always thought it was the other way around. I agree there are some similarities in the particularities of the face, but I will say, at the risk of sounding like a total jerk, the Rice portrait has just never struck me as right; can I say my sixth sense doesn’t think it is Jane? I have naturally curly hair, and my hair has never looked, no matter what I do, like the hair in the Rice portrait. It just isn’t right, I mean are there any other portraits like this of the other Austen children? Then why Jane?
March 28th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Ha ha, Tamara! Isn’t it funny how we curly-haired ladies just KNOW it isn’t her?
I was at the hair salon tonight and my stylist said to me, “Someday we’re going to flatiron your hair.” I said, “Why? It will just go curly again.” Besides, I’m a child of the 80s. I don’t like flat hair, at least on me.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
The dress is perfectly plausible; young girls were wearing (and being depicted) in high-waisted, low-necked dresses with sashes before their mothers began wearing them generally (and it wouldn’t be the first time mothers started dressing like their daughters!).
Without going so far as to say it is or it isn’t, I find it perfectly possible that the young girl in the portrait grew into the woman in Cassandra’s painting. Setting aside a difference in age of some twenty years, ill health, from which Jane suffered, makes a tremendous difference in one’s appearance. I have a wedding portrait of my mother, and more than one person has innocently asked which movie star it was; twenty years later, when she was afflicted with ill health - it wasn’t a question that anyone would have asked. Yet she was the same person.
There is a lot to be said for artistic convention, as well as interpretation; I’ve seen different portraits of Mme. Recamier, painted during the same time period, and they’re certainly not identical! A couple of them look very similar, and with one it’s just possible to see a relationship. A portrait painted just ten years later, with Mme. Recamier wearing a cap, no less, disguises her entirely.
I find it possible to believe that indeed, most people now would consider, and would have then considered Jane to be “pretty” - especially when she was animated and talking.
We should also remember that what is generally considered to be “pretty” today is not necessarily the same standard held at other times! Jane was “pretty” during a time period when a small mouth on a woman was considered attractive - as indeed the gentle fullness around her chin was also considered. This is not a period that would have favored angular cheekbones, a square jaw, and a full mouth - all considered attractive by many people today (to the extent that many people in Hollywood and out of it get cheekbone implants and lip injections). Our sitter here has an oval face, regular features, large, well-opened eyes, and eyebrows that are strongly marked without being heavy. She is a pretty woman.
And yes, Miss Chancellor is pretty.
Jennifer Ehle (whom I admire vastly) was not the only woman in the room with “fine eyes!”
April 1st, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’ve always felt Jane was pretty, based on the comments in her letters and the way she writes about her heroine’s looks; something in what she says makes me think she wasn’t overly jealous of pretty women because she was, IMHO, maybe not drop dead gorgeous, but pretty enough to flirt with and not be embarrassed of her looks.
She wasn’t rich though, and the girl in the portrait seems like she must be from a wealthy family. Again, conjecture!
April 4th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I’ve wondered if the Rice portrait might not be one of Edward Knight’s daughters–it has an air, to me, of Edward from the Grand Tour portrait.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I agree with those who have said that “it doesn’t feel right” that the portrait is “our” Jane: It just doesn’t seem to fit in with her situation in life. I also feel that it is more likely to have been of one of her nieces or great-nieces (most likely one of her brother Edward’s daughters).
I recently read the following quote from a letter to Cassandra in an excellent work by Josephine Ross, “Jane Austen: A Companion” (Rutgers University Press, 2002) in reference to Jane’s 15-year-old niece Anna: “‘Anna will not be surprised that the cutting off her hair [sic] is very much regretted by several of the party. I am tolerably reconciled to it by considering that two or three years may restore it again.’” Ms. Ross adds that “a year later [Jane] was still disconcerted by ‘that sad cropt head.’” That doesn’t sound to me like someone who approved of, or had herself ever had, “cropt hair.” Could the portrait have been of Anna?
I also take umbrage at those who find “our” Jane less than attractive, as I do not find her so; and it troubles me that the Rice portrait is now being definitely attributed to Ozias Humphry, which as I understand it is still not known for sure.
Alas! Part of why we love her so is that so much about her remains a mystery!