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Jane Austen (1775–1817)
Steel engraving after a sketch by Cassandra Austen; evidently executed as a frontispiece portrait for James Edward Austen-Leigh's biography of Austen entitled A Memoir of Jane Austen
London: Richard Bentley, 1870
Oval image: 120 x 96 mm
Purchased by J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1925; MA 1034.12
See CORSAIR catalog record for this item »
The only life portraits of Jane Austen are two sketches by her sister Cassandra from ca. 1804 and ca. 1810. The later and more famous portrait, an unsigned pencil and watercolor sketch of a hard-set and severe-looking Jane Austen, is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. J. E. Austen-Leigh commissioned James Andrews to adapt Cassandra's sketch for his Memoir. Andrews's anachronistic watercolor drawing changed Austen's attitude and features, essentially making a more presentable image of the writer for the Victorian reading public. This steel engraving of Andrews's watercolor made Austen's eyes look even larger and milder and her expression more gentle. Austen's niece Cassy Esten Austen commented that this engraving shows "a very pleasing, sweet face, — tho', I confess, to not thinking it much like the original."
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