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Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire was, in my opinion, one of the most important houses Jane Austen ever visited. Instead of staying in a modest country gentleman’s seat, such as Godmersham, when she visited Stoneleigh in 1806, she was catapulted into a much higher sphere: Stoneleigh was and still is one of the architectural wonders of the 18th century. Even the stern Mrs Austen was wondering in her admiration of it:
The house is larger than I could have supposed. We can now find our way about it, I mean the best part; as to the offices (which were the old Abbey) Mr Leigh almost despairs of ever finding his way about them. I have proposed his setting up directing posts at the Angles. I expected to find everything about the place very fine and all that, but I had no idea of its being so beautiful.
(See : Letter to Mary Austen, James Austen’s wife, August 13th, 1806)
I think its influence onJane Austen and her writings was incalculable and very important. No longer lived in by the Leigh family- it has been converted into a series of separate dwellings - the state rooms are still on show to the public during the visiting season. The BBC show Bargain Hunt visited the Abbey last week, and I thought you might like to see some shots from its detailed description of the plaster decoration in the Saloon.
The theme for the plaster decoration was the Labours of Hercules, a fittingly neo-classical subject for the Hall, as it was then called, when it was being decorated in the 1760s.
The ceiling shows the infant Hercules strangling the snakes which Juno had sent into the room where Hercules and his twin brother, Iphicles were sleeping.
Over the six subsidiary doors in the Saloon
are roundels which
depict the individual labours of Hercules.
The decoration over the the North Fireplace( there are two in the room) depicts the theme of Choice.
It shows Hercules , standing against a tree in the garden of the Hesperides.
Will he decide to follow the difficult and craggy path to the Temple ?
Which is being indicated by the sternly helmeted figure of Virtue, or,
will he succumb to the easier path and seductive comforts offered by the voluptuous figure representing Sloth
who points to a Palladian mansion where all earthy pleasures are surely to be found…
…an image inserted into the scene not without , perhaps, a touch of irony- Stoneleigh itself being a Palladian treasure-house.
The Herculean theme is continued in the fireplace itself.
The caryatid supports are figures of Hercules
wearing his lion skin. It is a wonderful room and I have always enjoyed visiting it. Being able to look at the magnificent plasterwork in detail like this, is a treat.
If you go here you have a few more days left in which to see the programme-on the BBC iPlayer, for mostly UK residents only, I fear. The Stoneleigh items appears approximately 20 minutes into the programme.
Here is a short BBC local TV video of George IVs Coronation Robe, for those of you who didn’t get to see it while it was on show at the Brighton Pavillion. It includes an interview with Martin Pel who curated the exhibit.
On Sunday the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow programme highlighted two picture which have echoes of Sense and Sensibility for us, and so I thought you might like to see them.
They were early 19th century silk needlework pictures, circa 1800, set in mounts which were made of filigree work.
Here are close-ups of the figures in the picture on the right…
If you enlarge the image by clicking on it, you will see details of the embroidery, typical of the period.
And also note that the faces and arms of the figures are painted onto the background material, which is possibly of silk too.
The mounts are filled with filigree work, where the patterns are formed by massing together rolled pieces of paper to give a similar effect to filigree work made from strings or threads of precious metals such as gold or sliver, hence its name.
For more detail on filigree work and how it was made, go here. It was, of course, this type of work that Jane Austen referred to in Chapter 23 of Sense and Sensibility:
.“Perhaps,” continued Elinor, “if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible, I think, for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it.”
These crafts were the type of “accomplishments” that were taught in the fashionable ladies academies. Such as the one that Jane Austen’s sister-in-law,Elizabeth Bridges, who married Jane’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, attended. In Jane Austen: A Family Record by Deirdre Le Faye, we learn that
She (Elizabeth-jfw) and her sister are all graceful, brown-haired beauties, who had been educated in London at the “Ladies Eton”, the boarding school in Queen Square, Bloomsbury run by the Misses Stevenson exclusively for the Daughters of the nobility and gentry. The academic content of the curriculum was minimal and the pupils learned little more than French, music and dancing while strong emphasis was placed on social etiquette- an old coach was kept propped up in a back room so that the girls would practise the art of getting in and out of it in a modest and elegant manner.
Page 70.
Here is a trade card for one such school, this time in Chelsea, dating from 1797:
This is the type of establishment that Charlotte Palmer no doubt attended, and her silk picture landscape, hung in her old room at Mrs Jennings’ town house, is the only tangible result of all her “efforts” there:
The house was handsome and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte’s, and over the mantlepiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.
Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 26.
Clearly, Jane Austen had a low opinion of such schools, and much preferred the type of “honest” education that she experienced at the Reading Ladies Boarding School housed in the old Reading Abbey. This was the model for Mrs Goddard’s school in Emma. Mrs Goddard’s school was certainly not one of these smart seminaries. I often do wonder what Jane Austen’s sister-in-law made of Jane’s barbed attacks on the type of establishment she attended, for she repeated it in Pride and prejudice too: the Miss Bingley’s were also “educated’ at one of these places.
The edition of the Antiques Roadshow, the tenth in this series, filmed at Bletchley Park, is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer, here – for another five days. The items appeared approximately 20 minutes into the show and were valued at £2000 for the pair.
The Chapel at Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, above, has long been considered to have been Jane Austen’s inspiration for the chapel at Southerton in Mansfield Park. She visited the great mansion in 1806, which was inherited by her cousin, the Reverend Thomas Leigh, and I have written about her visit and the grounds before, here and here.
The Chapel and its communion table were featured in Friday’s edition of Bargain Hunt on BBC One and I thought you might like to see some pictures of both the Chapel and the table, taken from that programme.
The Chapel is a most beautiful, austere double height room, with very little ornament, as you can see. This is the view from the family gallery. It is all very similar to the way Mr Rushworth’s Sotherton’s chapel was described in Mansfield Park:
Fanny’s imagination had prepared her for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of the family gallery above.
No wonder then that Fanny, who had been imagining something more Gothic and dark, full of banners and ancient tombs, was rather disappointed in the cool elegance of the Chapel at Sotherton:
“This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no arches, no inscriptions, no banners. No banners, cousin, to be ‘blown by the night wind of heaven.’ No signs that a ‘Scottish monarch sleeps below.’”
“You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. There you must look for the banners and the achievements.”
“It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed.”
Mansfield Park, Chapter 9
In 1763 Stoneleigh’s owner, the 5th Lord Leigh, decided to refurbish his mansion and engaged William Gomm, the cabinet maker of Clerkenwell in London, to provide 150 new pieces of furniture. The finest piece he made for the house was the communion, or altar table designed to stand below the beautiful reredos in the chapel, which can be seen below.
The table, which was created and delivered to Stoneligh in 1764, is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but is now on long term loan to Stoneleigh so that it can be seen and appreciated in its original setting:
The table is made of mahogany, thickly veneered over an oak carcass: you can see the underside of the table, below
It is beautifully carved…
in the rococo style…
The legs are festooned with garlands of flowers…
and all four legs are carved form a solid block of mahogany which would originally have been 15 inches wide, 15 inches deep and 32 inches high.
The central section of the table’s apron, which hangs below its top surface, is dominated by a beautiful carving of a cherub, which very cleverly echoes the plaster-work cherubs
that decorate the Chapel. These are set around the organ which can be seen in the first floor family gallery. which over looks the main body of the chapel. There were made by the Worcester stuccoist, John Wright when the chapel was first built.
The intricate decoration on the legs and apron of the table was very calculatedly done: it was meant to be seen below, from the level of the floor, as people would have been kneeling before it, in order to take the sacrament. The table would have been elevated on the slight dias as it stood before the reredos. The view the congregation would have had therefore was considered very carefully by Gomm.
The bill for all the items of furniture made by Gomm is still in existence.
The total cost of the 150 pieces of furniture was an astounding £818 and 9 shillings…
and we know that the table cost £31, 10 shillings. This is an astounding amount, especially when you consider that in 1806 Jane Austen inherited £50 from a friend of the Leigh Perrots, and was consequently able to live well on that amount all through 1807, even being able to afford the luxury of hiring a piano for her use when she lived in Castle Square, Southampton. Taking all this into consideration, you can begin to gauge just how expensive that table was.
But it is virtually certain that Jane Austen would have seen this table and may even have taken communion from it, as the family used the chapel during the time they stayed there. The evidence from Mrs Austen’s letter to her daughter-in-law, Mary dated August 13th, 1806 and which gives a great detail about their visit, tells us that:
At nine in the morning we meet and say our prayers in a handsome chapel, the pulpit &c now hung with black…
If you would like to see the original programme you can do so via the link on this page, if the BBC iPlayer is available to you. The programme is available to view for the next five days.
Last night the BBC aired its latest edition of the Antiques Roadshow filmed last summer at the wonderful Stanway House, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire which has always been one of my favourite places in England to visit , with its magical garden, originally planned by Charles Bridgeman in the 18th century,and which, since the 1980s, has undergone a process of extensive restoration.
At one point in the show we were treated to a Jane Austen fest. A lady who possessed some old looking editions of Jane Austen novels appeared. She owned rather tatty copies of Pride and Prejudice,Mansfield Park and Emma. She wanted to know if they were first editions and if it was worth having them rebound. She had inherited them from her father who had, in turn, inherited them from a godmother.
They were in pretty poor condition, as they had lived for 25 years in a suitcase in her attic.
However on closer inspection, and in my opinion, the binding shows them to have been originally owned by an earl, looking closely at the coronet on the bindings. An English earl is entitled to wear a coronet which has eight strawberry leaves (four are visible in depictions of it) and eight silver balls (or pearls) around the rim (of which five are visible in depictions).The bindings are also marked with the cypher “A. R.” .
I do hope the owner does some research into the original owner before she replaces the original bindings.
She was assured that they really were first editions and was delighted with this discovery. Some slightly dubious comments were made by the expert about anonymity, as to why Jane Austen didn’t put her name to her works, but I’ll gloss over that. He advised that all three novels( three volumes each, making 9 volumes in all) were worth being rebound, at a probable cost of £1000…
for he estimated their worth at £5000 each, a low estimate he hastened to add. I would say very low, frankly in the current market. But it was lovely to hear that the owner was a Janeite, almost word-perfect on the novels, and she was delighted to realise that she had in her possession, three (THREE!!!) first editions of books written by her favourite author. Good luck to her!
If you are able to access the BBC iPlayer, the programme is availabe to view for the next 6 days, and the item under discussion appeared approximately 40 minutes into the programme.
Yesterday, a few hours after I’d posted about the new Brighton Pavilion exhibit on Princess Charlotte: The Forgotten Princess, I saw an edition of BBC One’s Bargain Hunt programme which I simply and to write about here, as it continues the theme.
Part of the programme, presented by the lovely Tim Wonnacott, included a trip to Croft Castle in Herefordshire, now a National Trust property but once the home of the Croft family.
The member of the Croft family who interests us is Sir Richard Croft, the 6th Baronet, who lived from the 9th January 1762 until the 13th February 1818.
He was the accoucheur, the fashionable male midwife, who assisted Prince Charlotte during the birth of her still-born son, and which was ultimately the cause of her premature death on the 6th November 1817.
Princess Charlotte was the popular heir presumptive to the English throne, being George IV’s only legitimate child.
Her mother was his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, shown with Princess Charlotte, below. Their marital troubles were the stuff of great scandal and publicity .
Jane Austen detested the Prince and took the part of, as she saw it, his much maligned wife. In her letter to Martha Lloyd dated 16th February, 1813, she declared:
“I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales’s Letter. Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband — but I can hardly forgive her for calling herself “attached & affectionate” to a Man whom she must detest — & the intimacy said to subsist between her & Lady Oxford is bad — I do not know what to do about it; but if I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first. –”
Princess Charlotte married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg Saalfeld on 2nd May 1816, amid great celebrations. I wrote about them, here. Croft Castle has some items of memorabilia relating to the wedding in its collection: here is a pearlware figure of Prince Leopold
and here is its pair, a pearlware figure of Princess Charlotte:
Her death caused the most terrible outpouring of public mourning, for, as the only legitimate heir to the throne, the succession was now in doubt. An unseemly race to produce the next heir took place between George’s brothers, and eventually on 24th May 1819, the Duke and Duchess of Kent had issue: Princess Alexandrina Victoria,who became the next heiress presumptive to the throne. She became Queen Victoria on the death of William IV in 1837.
The exhibition of grief caused by the death of Princess Charlotte was extraordinary: something that happens very rarely and was, I suppose, comparable to the near hysteria that beset many parts of the nation when Princes Diana died in tragic circumstances in 1997.
As a result of the grief in the wake of Princess Charlotte death, many commemorative items were produced. I have written about my small collection before, but the Croft family have their own collection which was on show in the programme:
We were shown some of them in detail. The book, The Memoirs of the Princess Charlotte,
an edition that was rushed out in the last weeks of the year following her death in 1817, the frontispiece showing Prince Leopold prostrate with grief at her tomb.
Pearlware cups, saucers and plates…complete with portraits of Princess Charlotte and symbols of her status and of mourning.
And finally a very touching portrait: Sir Thomas Lawrence’s sketch of Sir Richard, taken by Sir Thomas shortly after Sir Richard had committed suicide in 1818.
He had an attended another traumatic birth, and it was too much for him. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait was taken in an attempt to console Sir Richard’s grieving sister.
The programme is available to view for another five days on the BBC iPlayer: go here to access it. It is a fascinating little interlude, and it begins approximately half way through the programme around the 24 minute mark.
Watching this programme, aired on Boxing Day on BBC2, was an odd experience for me. I’ve very deliberately not rushed to judgement on it and have, in fact, viewed it thrice now, in an effort to try to understand my reaction to it and to be fair to it.
I have to say, from the outset, that I do feel rather uncomfortable with the grand claims made during the programme, which I think can be fairly summarised, thus: if it can be proved that the drawing Dr. Paula Byrne bought in the summer at Bonhams, (which is set in a frame marked “Jane Austen 1775-1817” and is inscribed “Miss Jane Austin” on the reverse), is a portrait of Jane Austen made from life, then it will “revolutionise ” the way in which we consider her. We will no longer be influenced by the James Andrew portrait of her, which was commissioned by her family to be inserted into The Memoir written by James Edward Austen-Leigh, published in 1870. In the words of Dr Paula Byrne this portrait makes Jane Austen appear “pretty, prim and dim”.
My problem with this argument is that I think the “Dear Aunt Jane” view of Austen hasn’t prevailed for a long time (expect perhaps, from the evidence presented at the beginning of the programme,with its presenter, Martha Kearney). And surely anyone who reads any of Austen’s works cannot seriously think the author was not a critical observer, an intelligent woman of the world, astute and enough of a genius to be able to take on her society and its ills and wrap her critique of it up in some of the most enduing novels in the English language? Do we still look at the Andrews portrait and its derivatives and think that it compels us to think, as a matter of course, that the woman portrayed was a domesticated booby? Or do we recognise the Victorian pretence behind it? Do we have to have a portrait of her at all? Not as far as I am concerned…but, apparently, I am in a minority here, for the evidence from the programme is that many of us want and need a portrait of Jane Austen, but just not the Andrews’ version.
Though the programme did show the only authenticated portrait of Austen taken during her lifetime by her sister, Cassandra and which is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, it seemed to gloss over this image and concentrated instead on the Andrews image, which, of course, was not taken during Jane Austen’s lifetime, and its derivatives, all of which were held collectively responsible for our “current perception” of Jane Austen as a saintly, domesticated aunt with not a professional thought in her head.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that the NPG portrait, with all its faults, cannot be described as portraying someone who is dim, pretty or prim. Someone who is angry, annoyed and strong-willed might be more a reasonable description, though I admit that assessment of art is rather subjective. For, in my very humble opinion, the drawing under current discussion merely portrays a pleasant-looking, nicely-dressed woman of the 1810s in the action of writing something – not necessarily a novel- on a sheaf of paper. With a cat. In front of Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s. If it is of her,taken during her lifetime, then what is on display doesn’t add much to our knowledge of Austen and it is still, clearly, an amateur drawing with all its attendant limitations. I am a little suspicious of the grand claims being made for it, which, I suspect, could possibly say more about those who make them and their perceptions of Austen than they ever will for the drawing under discussion
Others certainly think differently. And that is obviously why this programme was made. Paula Byrne’s back story for the portrait -or so it appears to me- is that Jane Austen would have liked to have been portrayed in a portrait as a professional writer. Therefore, she may have sat for this portrait in London between the years of 1813-15, and may have done so secretly, not letting her family know of her desire to be thus portrayed. Hence its failure to be mentioned by the Austen family at all, and this especially explains why they didn’t refer to it in their search for a suitable image to be used in the Bentley editions and in the Memoir. One main candidate for authorship of the drawing is Eliza Chute, of the family who owned The Vyne, and who were friends and patrons of the Austens, in particular of Jane’s oldest brother, James. At one time Eliza Chute lived in George Street Westminster, within sight of Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church, where, indeed, she was married. The view in the drawing appears to have been the view she had from her home. She was also known to have been a gifted artist and consistently spelt Jane Austen’s surname name as “Austin”. Go here to see some very interesting information about her on Kelly McDonald’s excellent site.
The investigation into the picture as reported in the programme, revealed some points in favour of Dr Byrne’s contention, and some which, to me, do not appear to help at all. I will attempt to summarise them for you.
Forensic tests were made on the vellum and ink used and it was dated as being drawn between 1811 and 1869, the year before the publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s Memoir, which contained the infamous engraving derived from the Andrews portrait. The white highlights on the drawing were shown not to be of Zinc White paint, which would have dated it into the late 19th century and onwards, but, instead, showed them to have been made with barium sulphite. This was known commercially as “Constant White” and was superseded by Zinc White in the mid to late 19th century. The ink used in the inscription on the rear of the drawing was thought to be consistent with the composition of inks used in the first part of the 19th century.
The clothes worn by the figure in the drawing were thought to be consistent with fashionable clothing from 1813-15. The woman depicted in the picture was also thought to be tall, and this would tally with Anna Austen Lefroy’s description of Jane Austen. Anna, Jane’s niece, described her as ” tall slender and not drooping”. Anna’s description was relied upon very much throughout the course of the programme. The programme also referenced the Silk Pelisse held in the Hampshire Museum Service’s collection to support the contention that the woman depicted was tall. It was considered that the owner of this item of clothing would have been above the average woman’s height for the era. That was quoted as being 5 feet 5 inches. The woman who wore this pelisse could have been 5 feet 8 inches tall, much taller than average. However, I ought to point out in the interests of fairness that the Hampshire Museums services, who have the pelisse in their collection, are scrupulously fair when describing the provenance of the article. Go here to see. The doubts expressed by them was not as far as I could hear or see, recorded in the programme.
The provenance is problematical, for its existence only became known in the early 1980s. Roy Davids, the dealer who sold the manuscript at Bonham’s in the summer, bought it from the executrix of Sir John Forster M.P and Q.C, a man whose amazing reputation I knew of in the 1980s when I practised law in London. The drawing apparently formed part of his estate. Unfortunately, it would appear that his executrix, who sold the drawing to Mr Davids, destroyed some of Sir John’s private papers (go here to see an account of his fascinating career and this fact) and so the trail to discover the whereabouts of the portrait prior to the early 1980s has now gone cold and may be further hampered by this fact. An appeal was made during the programme for anyone with any information to come forward, which I repeat here.
The style of the portrait was also called into question. According to the art historians and experts consulted, the plumbago technique- applying graphite on vellum- went out of favour circa 1720. This was not explored any further in this programme.
The family resemblance- the Austen nose and Jane Austen’s asymmetrically placed eyes- was subject to modern techniques used to identity criminals from CCTV footage and photographs. I was a little uneasy about this technique, for surely the success or not of using it depends on the skill to the artists involved? A portrait is not as accurate a depiction of a person as a photograph, surely? Can an amateur drawing really be considered a scientific and accurate representation of someone’s feature?
However, the Austen nose was called into question, as Anna Austen, upon whose description the programme relied upon, clearly states her aunt to have had a “small nose”. The silhouette of “L’aimable Jane” also in the NPG’s collection shows this to be the case. Sadly, it was not referenced in the programme. Paula Byrne also debated whether the use of the word ”small” meant the same in the18th century as it does now. However, I noted that the programme did not dispute the terms “tall” and “slender”, though perhaps that was edited out. These words were also used by Anna Austen in her description of her aunt.
The misspelling of Austen as Austin was discussed. The Chute family and Eliza Chute in particular were shown to have always used this spelling. As did the Countess of Morely and others. And so, it would appear, did Jane Austen herself , at least once, given the evidence from the endorsement on the reverse of a royalties cheque made out by her publisher, John Murray’s office to “Miss Jane Austin” and which is now in the John Murray archive.
Would Jane Austen have wanted to be portrayed as a writer? Both her biographer, Claire Tomlain and Professor Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway doubted she would have wanted this. The anonymous default position of writers of novels was discussed, for writing novels, as opposed to writing religious tracts, poetry and plays carried with it a slightly disreputable association. Being depicted in a portrait as a writer of novels might not have been quite the thing.
The execution of the portrait was thought to have been made by an amateur who had received instruction from a master. Apparently the arm of the figure is drawn too long and the head does not sit well enough on the body to have been executed by an expert artist. However, the inclusion of the swag of drapery and the columnar depiction of Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s suggested grandeur, a grandeur beyond the social milieu in which Jane Austen found herself as the relatively poor spinster daughter of a gentry family. The column/swag devise is an artistic concept used by artist from Van Dyke onwards in aristocratic and royal portraits. Thus it might be seen to have been included in this drawing as some sort of tribute. Or could its inclusion have been ironic- an in-joke? Interestingly, one of the art historians remarked that the inclusion of such grand buildings as St Margaret’s and Westminster Abbey would have been included in the portrait as some symbolic reference with significance only to the sitter. The woman who may have been the artist, Eliza Chute, had many associations with that part of London (see above). However the commentary by Martha Kearney, slightly later in the programme, suggested that the symbolism could apply to both sitter AND the artist. This discrepancy annoyed me though, to be scrupulously fair, it may have been accidental.
I didn’t really like the way that the documentary presented the fact that Jane Austen lived with Henry Austen, her brother in London at Hans Place and Henrietta Street( note Upper Berkeley Street was not mentioned) almost as a revelation. Anyone who reads her novels must surely realise she had a fantastic working knowledge of London and its intimacies, and could only have written about that from her own knowledge, built up by visiting it frequently, over a number of years. Even the most basic biographies of her note she visited London often. The programme seemed to me to try hard to convince us that the world sees Jane Austen as the innocent, uninformed spinster, a constant inhabitant of the small, enclosed Hampshire village of Chawton, and of course we do know –many of us-that was not the case. This was another irritant to me.
No one explained away the presence of the cat on the table in the drawing or what it might represent.
A final set piece was shown partly to us where Paul Byrne presented her findings to a panel of Austen experts: Deirdre Le Faye, Claudia Johnson of Princeton University and Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University. I’ll try to present what I think they thought of the drawing. Deirdre Le Faye was clearly unimpressed with the presentation and maintains her stance ( which has been reported since 2007) that this is an imaginary portrait of Jane Austen not taken from life. She also disputed that the Chute connection was as close as Dr Byrne was suggesting, in that she thought Jane Austen may have visited Eliza Chute when in London and had her portrait taken then. Kathryn Sutherland thought the image portrayed was similar to the authenticated image of Austen held in the NPG and that she would be happy to see this as an another image of Jane Austen if it could be authenticated, as, for her, it would refute the “Godmother of Chick Lit” status that she felt was currently applied to Jane Austen. Claudia Johnson agreed that she would like this to be an image of Jane Austen but interestingly made the point that Le Faye’s argument that the Chutes were not close friends of Jane Austen added weight to the argument that the drawing was made by someone who knew of Jane Austen, but who was not in her immediate social circle and that is why the portrait has been unknown, particularly to the Austen family, until the 1980s.
They all agreed that further research had to be undertaken. I do have to say, that for me, this part of the programme was most uncomfortable to watch.
I have the suspicion that this is not the last programme we shall see on this topic. There are, as you can see many, many more questions to be answered, many that have been raised during the course of this film. There is of course a lot at stake especially for Dr Byrne, and the financial implications are huge. If another film is to be made, perhaps Dr Byrne herself could be persuaded to be the presenter. I found Martha Kearney’s manner of presenting the programme rather arch and none too serious and I think it set the wrong tone, as it was at odds with some of the evidence being set before us. Ironically, for me, it rather reinforced the impression of Dear Aunt Jane Austen at the head of a cozy heritage industry, and didn’t help the argument that the drawing under discussion depicts her as a professional writer. But as I say this may be merely my reaction.
I have to admit the brouhaha about this new “portrait” has made me think rather deeply about my own responses to the images we have of Jane Austen. I suppose I was lucky in that I was half way though reading the novels in the early 1970s as a 12 year old, before I saw an image of her, and that was the sketch in the NPG. Truth be owned, I like Cassandra’s sketch, and I also like the fact that it sits amongst the massive bow-wow strain of Regency portraits ( mostly of men) in the museum’s Regency Galleries. For, to me, it makes a rather interesting point that, though these sitters were considered important enough to be immortalised in oils by great artists during their life times, Jane Austen, whose fame eclipses nearly everyone portrayed there, is only known to us by this slight, incomplete and amateur sketch. One which cannot, due to its execution, give us much idea as to her real image. The contrast between it and the other portraits is immeasurable. She is as ever, elusive. And I have a suspicion she might just have preferred our impression of her to remain that way.
I do however, sincerely wish Dr Bryne all the luck in the world with her quest for authenticity. I do hope she is not discouraged by the robust assessment of the drawing by Sir Roy Strong in the programme, for it would be rather pleasant to add another authenticated image of Jane Austen to the tiny collective, even if I’m not as convinced as others as to what more this drawing can tell us about Jane Austen, the professional writer, than can be divined by reading her works.
Amanda Vickery’s latest documentary, on Jane Austen’s fame and how her reputation has spread since her death in 1817, was aired on BBC2 on Christmas Eve, and I thought you might be interested in my thoughts on it. In the hour-long programme, she told the story of how Jane Austen and her works have come to enjoy such astronomical fame today, to the point where she is now ubiquitous. And it is an interesting journey, when you seriously consider it. Just how did the daughter of an obscure cleric, whose works were favoured by a small, elite group in her life time,
and then was almost forgotten…whose birthplace is now destroyed,
whose only authenticated image is tantalisingly vague,
and whose gravestone omitted to mention the fact that she a was a professional, published author of novels,
manage to become so famous, to the point where the world-wide Jane Austen industry (heritage or otherwise ) is today worth millions, and where one of her incomplete manuscripts, The Watsons, can command a price of almost £1 million at auction?
This story has been told before: Claire Harman’s book, Jane’s Fame:How Jane Austen Conquered the World( 2009), covered this topic quite succinctly - but this programme was not really meant for Jane aficionados who most probably will have already read the book. It was really aimed, in my opinion, to inform the non-obsessed amongst us (And yes, they do exist!) Those who, perhaps, take for granted that Jane Austen and her vibrant characters have always been so dominantly amongst us, this past 200 years, and may be surprised to learn that this has not really been the case.
This story was told as an interesting illustrated international journey- beautifully shot and Amanda Vickery is always a congenial, intelligent companion. En route we met with academics such as Professor Kathryn Sutherland, who explained away some of the Jane myths, especially those that surround the “official ” images of her;
Lucasta Millar, shown below in the gloomy graveyard at Haworth with Professor Vickery, explained the Romantic’s attitude to Jane and why they so violently rejected her.
One of the most outspoken critics of her, was, of course, Charlotte Bronte, hence the filming at Haworth in Yorkshire.
We learnt how the publishing world and in particular, W. H. Smith’s mid championing of the mid to late 19th century cheap yellow back railway editions of Jane’s novels began to spread the word ( when they were conveniently out of copyright)by offering them via their outlets on stations to the many thousands of bored railway travellers, desperate for some cheap entertainment on interminable journeys…
,
and how her reputation grew amongst a group of aesthetic men, to the point where many men serving in the trenches of World War One found solace in her world, retreating in their heads to her place of safety, thus avoiding the real horrors that daily beset them.
The academic world and its near obsession with her ( Have you ever tried to keep count of the sheer number of academic papers of varying merits that are published about Austen every year? Don’t attempt it, I beg of you…) was addressed and particular emphasis was paid to the important influence of F. R. Leavis and his wife Queenie
with their pugnacious championing of the English Novel (and in particular the moral and literary worth of Jane Austen) in their teaching at Cambridge, and also in his book The Great Tradition (1948) where he boldly asserted that
‘The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad’.
The importance of the wider media was also acknowledged, and indeed, this is probably the most important factor which has been the enabler of Jane’s extreme fame today. Given the amazing commercial success of film and TV adaptations of her novels, it may stun you to realise that, while Charles Dickens’ works were filmed countless times from the beginning of the cinema industry in the late 19th century, Jane Austen was ignored by Hollywood until the 1940 adaptation of Helene Jerome’s successful Broadway production of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Oliver and Greer Garson.
BBC TV led the way to a certain extent with adaptations of Pride and Prejudice in 1938, 1952, 1958, and 1967, though this version ( of which I have vague memories) was aired in the Sunday tea-time slot, and was aimed primarily at an audience of children.
The 1980 version by Faye Weldon was broadcast on BBC2, and this, it was argued, was the beginning of Austen’s now massive popularity where TV audiences are concerned. Amanda confessed to finding David Rintoul’s Darcy particularly attractive…
And, of course, it was in 1995 with Andrew Davis’s version of the novel for BBC 1( aired this time at primetime Sunday evening viewing at 9 p.m.) that a world-wide, very enthusiastic audience was generated.
The documentary included an amusing interview with the incorrigible Andrew Davis, still championing his admittedly successful formula of “sexing-up ” of Austen’s novels, gaily claming she missed a trick in her portrayal of the, to him, rather sexless heroes of Sense and Sensibility( complaints on a postcard to Mr Davis and not to me , if you please)
What I liked most about the programme was its attitude toward the Janeites of today. The annual Bath Regency Promenade, part of the Bath Jane Austen Festival, shown here descending Gay Street , was filmed and most affectionately was it done, too.
The participants interviewed were not depicted (as I had feared) as crazed fans, but as thoughtful but fun-loving people whose interest in Jane had spurred them on to research her era in their own way. The JASNA conference at Fort Worth might have been an easy target for scorn, but Amanda seems to have genuinely enjoyed the experience, and found, I think, to her slight surprise that the audience consisted mainly of powerful, genuine, intelligent women, typified by Dr Cheryl Kinney, below. The point was made that the members of JASNA who came together to share their admiration and love for this author, saw her on many different levels. All interpretations were welcome. This section was a delight.
For the committed Janeite, there was not much new to be learned. But I have done a little market research amongst my Christmas Guests- none of whom are Janites, but who have endured my obsession for too many years to number here- and they learnt a lot from the documentary. ( Do note that watching it was not compulsory in this house, but some brave souls did sit through it with me). They had assumed, incorrectly, that Jane’s fame has always been as great as it is now. Their surprise was palpable when they discovered this was not the case. They throughly enjoyed this entertaining and charming history of the cult of Jane. It was an interesting programme, and if you do not have access to the BBC Iplayer, where you can watch it again, here, then I do hope it will be made available to you on DVD soon.
This morning Amanda Vickery took part in BBC Radio 4′s Midweek Programme. You can listen to the programme again, here or, download it as a podcast, here. I do hope the those of you outside the UK can hear it via this route. As ever, fingers crossed….
It was a rather lovely edition of the programme today, with the beautiful Martha Fiennes talking about her digitization of The Nativity which will be screened in Covent Garden’s Piazza, and the wonderful Celia Imrie, one of my favourite actresses, who apparently was as lovely, warm and as funny as you would expect her to be.
Amanda was the last guest to be interviewed,( about 34 minutes into the programme). She talked, of course, about her forthcoming documentary, The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen, which will be screened on BBC2 on Friday 23rd December at 9 p.m. I thought she defended Jane Austen’s reputation very well,(some of Libby Purvis’s comments made me grind my teeth!My poor teeth! My poor Dentist!!) and also defended we obsessives and our, sometimes(ahem!) strange behaviour, and… she reveals that Captain Wentworth is her favourite hero ;)
I saw the trailer for the programme last night and it looks to be very rich and interesting .Can’t wait.
My goodness, it’s a very busy week Austen news-wise!
Here is a link to another BBC Hampshire News Report that you will all ( fingers crossed!) be able to see. It concerns the recent move of the Austen-related documents and books in the collection of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust which have been in the care of the Jane Austen Museum. They have now been removed to the care of the Hampshire Records Office for proper conservation, and-this is the really great news- they have now been digitized so that everyone can access them via a commuter terminal when on a visit to the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester. Go here to see some of the documents concerned
This move will help preserve these precious relics of Jane Austen and her family- the documents include some of her letters and the manuscript music books- for posterity and will also allow more of us to use them for research, without damaging the originals( always my fear when touching original documents, so clumsy am I!)
I have to say that all my dealings with the Hampshire Record Office have been fabulous - in person or by telephone – and I’m certain this is the best place to preserve them for the future.
The Jane Austen’s House Museum will still retain the right to show these items from this collection at the museum from time to time, so it would seem that everyone wins. Bravo to all concerned.
The BBC have now opened a webpage devoted to this programme which you can access here.
There are also three clips from the programme available to watch: the first has Earl Spencer reading( from a Folio edition of JAne Austen, if my eyes do not deceive me) an extract from Sense and Sensibility (to Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto playing in the background).
The second deals with the effect reading Jane Austen had on men in the trenches of the First World War,
and the third has a serious but affectionate view of the recent JASNA AGM in Fort Worth Texas.
It looks serious, affectionate, funny and very interesting. I can’t wait to see this when it airs on the 23rd December on BBC2 at 9.p.m.
Paula Byrne has just revealed that the church tower shown in the “new” portrait is not Westminster Abbey, as previously speculated, but is that of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.
St Margaret’s was built as a church where the ordinarily people who lived near to Westminster Abbey could worship. The present building was begun in 1245 during the reign of Henry III but was rebuilt between 1486 and 1523. Since 1614 it has been the parish church of the Palace of Westminster, which is of course where the House of Commons and the House of Lords are situated.It is famous, among other things, for its grand society weddings.
This picture, above, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons, shows the tower very clearly. It was rebuilt by the Hampshire born architect, John James, who was an assistant of Sir Christopher Wren, between the years 17343 to 1738. His most famous commission was St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, in smart, rich and elegant Mayfair, shown below. This image is from my collection of prints from the early nineteenth century part work, The Beauties of England and Wales:
This was, of course, where poor Mary Crawford dreamt of marrying Edmund Bertram in Chapter 43 of Mansfield Park.
Back to St Margaret’s, and I think this, visually, makes more sense. The two towers look very similar. What do you think?
The excellent Alison Flood of the Guardian wrote this very good summation of the situation in The Guardian online yesterday. She has some additional informative quotes from Paula Byrne and I thought you might like to read some of them:
“When my husband bought it he thought it was a reasonable portrait of a nice lady writer, but I instantly had a visceral reaction to it. I thought it looks like her family. I recognised the Austen nose, to be honest, I thought it was so striking, so familiar,” Byrne told the Guardian. “The idea that it was an imaginary portrait – that seemed to me to be a crazy theory. That genre doesn’t exist, and this looks too specific, too like the rest of her family, to have been drawn from imagination.”
Here are some of the silhouettes and portraits of Jane Austen’s family for you to compare the “Austen nose“
George Austen, Jane’s father, above, and below, and this is him in silhouette:
Jane’s mother, Cassandra Austen nee Leigh, in silhouette:
And now her siblings: first James Austen, Jane’s eldest brother:
Edward Knight:
Henry Austen:
Frank Austen:
Charles Austen:
and a silhouette of Cassandra Austen, Jane’s sister:
And here is a silhouette thought to be of Jane Austen- L’aimiable Jane”- found in a second edition of Mansfield Park
Paula Byrne is also quoted regarding her forthcoming documentary about the portrait:
She approached the BBC, and together they put together a documentary on the portrait, working with various experts including art historians, fashion experts and forensic analysts on the picture’s background. “We approached it with an open mind,” said Byrne. “We tried to cover all leads, and in the end we put our findings to three top Jane Austen scholars, and two out of three thought it was her.”
The Jane Austen experts were Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University, Professor Claudia Johnson of Princeton and Deirdre Le Faye. Kathryn Sutherland and Claudia Johnson both agreed the picture was of Jane Austen. As we suspected, Deirdre Le Faye thought otherwise. As Paula Byrne comments:
“She thinks it is an imaginary portrait. I did try so hard to find one single example of an imaginary portrait, but nobody could find one – they just don’t exist,” said Byrne. “But it’s great to have the debate – it opens up a very interesting question about who Jane Austen was and who we want her to be.”
Hmm. I’m not quite sure that is correct, and while no imaginary portrait might be extant from the period, we read yesterday that such things were being created by enthusiastic fans. Go here to see Deirdre Le Faye’s comments .
Paula Byrne also thinks the the portrait shows Jane Austen to be in London:
“This new picture first roots her in a London setting – by Westminster Abbey. And second, it presents her as a professional woman writer; there are pens on the table, a sheaf of paper. She seems to be a woman very confident in her own skin, very happy to be presented as a professional woman writer and a novelist, which does fly in the face of the cutesy, heritage spinster view.“
This is how Westminster Abbey appeared in the 1780s, depicted by Paul Sandby. You can enlarge these pictures for a closer look by clicking on them, remember.
The towers of the Abbey, below, have similarities…
I think you will agree, to the tower depicted in the portrait.
Here’s a photograph I took last year for you to compare:
But why would Jane Austen be shown in London? Could one of Henry Austen’s circle of friends have drawn her? If so, why include an image of Westminster Abbey? I think we have to await the broadcast of the documentary to discover exactly what the evidence is, aside from the presence of what would appear to be the Austen nose ;)
Personally, I’d like to see a report on the dating evidence for the vellum and the ink used to inscribe the reverse of the portrait ( with an interesting misspelling of Jane Austen’s surname: “Miss Jane Austin”.) Other questions I’d like answered include why that name was misspelt? Why is she depicted as a writer, when no one in her immediate family ever depicted her so and she clearly did not want to be known in the wider world as a woman who earned money as a professional writer? Who could have created a portrait? If it was taken from life it must surely have been made by someone intimate with her and her family? In that case when was the misspelt inscription put on it, and why was it misspelt if it was drawn by an intimate? Why has it not come to light before the 1980s and what research has been made into its life before that date? Too many questions to list here to be frank.
And another thought: if this is of Jane Austen does it really affect the way you think of her?How you perceive her and her genius? I have to say that , personally, it doesn’t affect my opinion of her at all. Her works- the juvenilia, the novels (completed and unfinished) and her letters- are more important to me in informing how I think about her than any of these images. I really don’t need another sadly amateur portrait to influence this. If a fashionable less frumpy image is required of her, and I may quickly insert that for me it is not, let us not forget that there may be one in existence already- but it’s attribution is hotly contested by the National Portrait Gallery and other experts. This is James Stanier Clarke’s little water colour of a fashionably dressed woman and it is thought by some to be Jane Austen visiting him at Carlton House, the Prince of Wales’ London residence:
Stanier Clarke was, of course, the Prince of Wales’ librarian who so infuriated Jane Austen with his hints to her as to how a novel should be written.
However, I will own that I do wish a great professional artist could have depicted her in adult hood. Someone like Zoffany, Hoppner or even Thomas Lawrence, whom we know to have been an admirer of her talent. Now, that really would be something to shout about. For these artists would have given us not only a good representation of her features, but would also have captured, surely, something of her vivacity, her intelligence, which sadly to my eye, these amateur portraits do not. That really would be a fantastic discovery don’t you think?
The British media is agog this morning with the possibility of there being a newly, previously unknown, recently discovered portrait of Jane Austen for us all to deliberate upon. Dr Paula Byrne whom you may know from of the book, Jane Austen and the Theatre fame, is currently writing a new biography of Jane Austen, The Real Jane Austen. This is destined to be published in 2013 to coincide with the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice. Dr Byrne claimes that this portrait, below, is of our favourite author. Do click on it to enlarge it to see the details
The portrait was brought to her attention by her husband Jonathan Bate, the renowned Shakespearian scholar. He saw it was going to be sold at auction and thought the resemblance to Jane Austen was strong. The pencil drawing on vellum was bought by Paula Byrne who discovered that “Miss Jane Austen” was inscribed on the reverse. Dr Byrne is today quoted in the press with her arguments supporting her contention that the portrait is of Jane.They are as follows:
The ‘memoir portrait’(below-jfw) has always rather annoyed me. It makes her look pretty and dim. It feeds this whole notion of ‘Aunt Jane’, the demure spinster who was very good at spillikins and enjoyed scribbling on the side, but was content with her life in the shadows.
Scholars know there was so much more to her. And for me this new picture encapsulates – almost too perfectly – that other side. She’s a professional woman presenting herself to the world with the tools of her trade. It’s the image of Jane Austen so many of us have been waiting for.
Paula Byrne was interviewed on the BBC Today Programme this morning, and cross-examined quite closely by Will Gompertz, and you might like to hear their exchange. Go here to listen to it. In the interview, Dr Byrne claims that 2 out of the 3 most important Jane Austen experts agree with her that the portrait is indeed of Jane.
I think we discerning readers have been well aware for some times that there is so much more to Jane Austen than being a genteel, domestically minded spinster sitting at the fireside, as portrayed in the original Memoir by her nephew. For example, through my readings of her novels, I have discovered that she appears to have been very political indeed and espoused some of the most famous political causes of the day 
But its good to note that the new biography of her might take this idea and run with it because the sweet spinster interpretation of Jane Austen that still persists irritates me beyond measure. No one who reads her letters could ever, surely, come away with this twee view of her, and yet some readers still cling to the “Dear Aunt Jane ” interpretation of her life and works.
As to the portrait, Dr Byrne is certain it has the Austen nose and was convinced on first seeing it that it was Jane Austen. Dr Byrne will be presenting all her arguments in support of her theory to us in a BBC2 documentary to be broadcast on Boxing Day ( 26th December) entitled , Jane Austen : The Unseen Portrait. I am intrigued to see it.
She will have to do more than convince us and Austen scholars however, as to the authenticity of the portrait. The National Portrait Gallery in London holds the only authenticated full-face image of Jane, as painted by her sister, Cassandra. Go here to see it, but I’m sure you are all familiar with this tiny watercolour. It was from this sketch, which was not thought to be very like Jane by her contemporaries, that the engraving included in James Austen Leigh’s memoir was “adapted”. Recently the Rice Portrait of Jane Austen has been the subject of some controversy about its disputed authenticity, a controversy which still continues. Go here to read about the portrait, and its rather sad history
The newly discovered picture will no doubt be subject to the same doubts and deliberations. It will be very interesting to see the documentary and hear the arguments for and against. In the meantime, do you think this could possibly be a new portrait of Jane? When do you think the portrait was taken? And where? And by whom? Is it too accomplished to be Cassandra’s work? What church or cathedral tower does it show? Does it have the “Austen Nose” ? Many, many questions to be answered…. for the moment, I leave it to yourselves to determine.
is now scheduled to be broadcast on the 23rd December from 9 p.m.- 10 p.m. on BBC2
The Press Release for the programme gives us some hints of its content:
To mark the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility, Professor Amanda Vickery, one of the leading chroniclers of Georgian England, explores the ebb and flow of Austen’s popularity and the hold her fiction has on us now.
In this 60-minute programme, Vickery considers what it is about her plots and characters that continue to delight, amuse, console and provoke. Her fans insist her current popularity is due to the timelessness of the fictional world Austen created, but for Vickery the question is: Why have her novels gone in, and out, of fashion?
What interests Amanda is how different periods and generations have looked for their own reflection in the characters and plots of the novels. She wants to work out what that says about them, as well as about Austen.
As you are aware, Amanda has spent much of the summer filming for this project all over the world, including at the Jane Austen House Museum, filming the sale of The Watsons manuscript at Sotheby’s, visiting JASNA’s AGM at Fort Worth in Dallas. She has also recorded her impressions of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and has interviewed many experts, literary and non-literary, including Jocasta Millar, the Bronte scholar and author of one of my favourite books, The Bronte Myth.
I’m looking forward to it very much, and hope to be able to share my impressions of it with you, Christmas Preparations permitting!
It is Advent and Christmas is fast approaching…far too fast probably for all the preparations to be completed on time. But I’m feeling a little frivolous and so, in this anniversary year for Sense and Sensibility, I thought you might like to have a little fun and enjoy listening and reading about the actors from Ang Lee and Emma Thompson’s film version of Sense and Sensibility from 1995 who have appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs. This version of Jane Austen’s novel, with all its faults, omissions but many bonuses, is my favourite adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.
Desert Island Discs is a venerable radio programme, and was first broadcast in 1942. It has been running continually since then. For those of you unfamiliar with it, tt has a simple premise: imagine you are marooned on a desert island. You are allowed eight records, or recordings to accompany you. The Bible ( or your religious book of choice) and the Complete Works of Shakespeare are waiting for you too. You can choose to take another book and a luxury, which ought to have no practical use. The choices and the explanations for them are usually quite fascinating and illuminating.
Last week the Castaway was Robert Hardy- for the second time. Robert Hardy played a fabulous, lively Sir John Middleton in the 1995 film.
You can listen to Robert Hardy’s second tranche of choices here and read about his old choices, from 1978, here. Amongst other interesting snippets, it was fascinating to hear about his choice of subject to read at Oxford University. Originally wanting to read History he was persuaded to read English instead, on the basis that his tutors would be C. S. Lewis and J.R. R. Tolkien. Wise choice.
I thought you might like to hear ( or read, if the programme is rather old) other programmes with a Sense and Sensibility connection, as many members of the cast of that adaptation have, at different times, appeared on the programme …so here is the episode for Dame Harriet Walter, which can be listened to again.
Dame Harriet Walter was a most avaricious and compelling Fanny Dashwood in the 1995 production, possibly the best and most malevolent but funny Fanny Dashwood I’ve ever seen.
Go here to listen to Emma Thompson’s programme. Emma Thompson not only starred as Elinor Dashwood but also wrote the screenplay of the film, for which she won as Oscar. Gemma Jones’ programme can be read about here. She was a rather wonderful Mrs Dashwood, with charm and a resemblance to Marianne in her manner.
Hugh Laurie, who portrayed a much more sympathetic Mr Palmer than is detailed in the text, in my view, gave his selection and choices for his desert island exile here.
Hugh Grant’s choices can be accessed here: he was of course a rather impossibly handsome Edward Ferrars in the film.
Imelda Stuanton’s programme can be listened to here : she was a really wonderfully irritating and brainless Charlotte Palmer in the film.
The archive for the programme is fascinating and a great prevarication tool. You never know whose choices are lurking there awaiting discovery. For example, here is the link to Colin Firth’s choices ,which can also be downloaded as a podcast to keep. You are most welcome
Today I have a rare treat for you- a close look at a nearly forgotten ladies accomplishment: paper filigree work.
Poor Elinor Dashwood: in order to learn more of Lucy Steele’s entanglement with Edward Ferrars, she has to volunteer to join her in making a filigree basket for Annamaria Middleton, whom Jane Austen describes as a spoilt child:
“Perhaps,” continued Elinor, “if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible, I think, for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it.”
Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 23
Playing cards with the cold Lady Middleton or having heartrending talks with spiteful, scheming Lucy? Not much of a choice is it?
Rolledpaper work, filigree work, or as it is now known, quilling, was a popular pastime for accomplished young ladies in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. The first known forms of this type of decoration, which is made by decorating items with many, many rolled and pinched or crimped pieces of paper, set in pleasing patterns, date from the 15th and 16th centuries.Predominantly using gold and silver covered paper, filigree work was then used to decorate items with religious significance- pictures of saints etc.- however, shortly after the Reformation in England,when “idolatrous” objects were discouraged, the practice died out. In the mid 17th century the art was revised in England ,and was often used in conjunction with stump work embroidery to decorate mirrors and caskets. In the 18th century it became a popular pastime for young ladies. Most were content to work on small pieces, as in Annamaria’s basket, and pieces like this tea caddy dating from about 1800, below:
You can see that the patterns formed by the rolled pieces of paper give a similar effect to filigree work made from strings or threads of precious metals such as gold or sliver, hence its name.
Some ladies were more accomplished than others, and were more ambitious too. Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of George III,was known to have ordered and received a cabinet especially constructed so that she could cover it with filigree work. It was described as a box made for filigree work with ebony mouldings, lock and key and also a tea caddy to correspond…
A cabinet of this type of work still exists and that is what I would like to show to you now. It appeared on the BBC’s Bargain Hunt Programme on Wednesday 2nd November, and was chosen by the programme’s presenter,Tim Wonnacott formerly of Sothebys ,as the object he most coveted in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Cheshire.
Here is Tim, standing next to the cabinet, which dates from the last years of the 18th century:
It has a stand, and is 4 feet 10 inches tall, 2 feet wide and 1 foot 5 inches deep.
The exterior is decorated with prints, filigree work and freshwater pearls:
The prints have been coloured, then applied to the cabinet and then finally varnished to give the appearance of oil paintings. In the image above you can see that the side panels are decorated as well as the doors.
If you take a close look at the decoration on the doors, you can see the tightly rolled pieces of paper…
which have been affixed to the surface of the cabinet. Note that the pattern comes not only from the way the pieces have been rolled but also from the use of papers of different colours.
The doors are also decorated with strings of freshwater pearls…
which are set in the form of swags. They help “display” the varnished prints in a decorative manner…
..so that the pictures hang pendant from the swags:
The sides are decorated in a stunning pink pattern: butterflies dance among the whirls of paper
The programme showed us something that is not normally seen- the interior of the cabinet:
The interior is stunning. The colours are almost as they were when it was made 200 years ago, because, of course, they have been protected from attacks of the sun and dirt. The reverses of the doors were not shown to us in detail but I can tell you that they are lined with painted satin bordered with glass jewels.
The centre panel of the cabinet again contains a varnished print, but this time it is set around with cut steel pieces-a very fashionable material at the time for buckles and jewellery, for despite its dull sounding name , it actually sparkles like cut stones.
This would have glittered and shone in the candlelight of a late 18th century sitting room, such a wonderful effect.
The interior of the cabinet is furnished with many small drawers, all decorated with filigree work:
You can see them in these two illustrations:
Here are some close-ups of the filigree work patterns on the drawers:
…here you can see a pattern of pink leafage set amongst a ground of aqua coloured paper rolls
Another leafage pattern this time in pale green, plus a star pattern..or is it a flower?
Another complex star/flower pattern with green leafage
These patterns were not necessarily the brainchild of the woman working them. Patterns could be purchased and some were printed in women’s magazine of the time. This one, below, shows very similar leafage and flower designs to the ones used on the cabinet:
This was first published in The New Ladies’ Magazine for 1786. In the same magazine there was an advertisement for the finest filigree work which could be seen at the first shop in Mount Street by Berkeley Square.
A statement in the same magazine promoted the craft, noting that paper filigree work was thought eminently suitable for the “female mind”:
The art affords an amusement to the female mind, capable of the most pleasing and extensive variety ; it may be readily acquired and pursued at a very trifling expense.
Perfect for Lucy Steele then, a woman with a certain amount of native cunning but no great intellectual gifts. I wonder if Jane Austen’s ire had been raised by reading such pronouncements, and that is why she gave such an occupation to Lucy…it is entirely possible, don’t you think?
However that may be, I think the cabinet on show here displays staggering levels of expertise. I can agree with Tim Wonnacott that I’d love it in my own home.
Yesterdays episode of the BBC2 programme, The Antiques Road Trip, a spin-off from the BBC1 programme, Bargain Hunt, was partly filmed in Chawton,
and featured Jane Austen’s House Museum.
I thought you might like to see some images from it.
The programme is a gentle jaunt about the country in the company of two auctioneers/experts who buy and sell antiques on the way, all the profits to benefit charity. The programme makes stops at various spots of interest along the road trip route, and in episode 15 of the third series, Paul Laidlaw took the opportunity to pay a visit to the Jane Austen House Museum.
He was greeted at the door by Louise West, the museum’s curator…
and was taken to see the dining room…
where the tiny but very important table where Jane Austen sat, revised and wrote all six of her finished novels
was admired and wondered about.
He also visited the new study area in the museum- which used to house its tiny shop ( now in a much larger and better situation in the restored barn! ) where a first edition copy of Sense and Sensibility- appropriately enough in this its anniversary year- was on show.
If you can try and watch the programme on the BBC Iplayer- it is available for another six days and the Jane Austen House part of the programme is approximately 25 minutes into the programme. Paul Laidlaw was obviously quite taken with the museum and asked some interesting questions. Its well worth a look .
This week the BBC has been repeating the 2002 documentary, The Real Jane Austen on BBC4, presumably as part of the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of both the Regency and the publication of Sense and Sensibility.
This is a very engaging programme, an hour long, presented by the actress, Anna Chancellor. Ms. Chancellor is not only famed for her wonderfully catty performance as Miss Bingley in the BBCs 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice, but also for the fact that Jane Austen was her eight times great-aunt.
The documentary was filmed on location, at Chawton Cottage, now the Jane Austen’s House Museum, and Jane’s beloved peaceful home for the last eight years of her life.
It was also filmed at The Rectory at Teigh, which was used as the location for Mr Collins’ rectory in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.
The Rectory, which I have visited and written about here and here, was used as the location for the Steventon Rectory, where Jane Austen was born and grew up. The original building has long since been demolished, and I think, if you consider the original, shown below, that the rectory at Teigh is a fair replacement.
The hall at Teigh, shown below with its beautiful plasterwork, was also used as the drawing-room at Manydown, the scene of Jane Austen’s engagement and swift dis-enagagment to Harris Bigg Wither.
It uses an interesting device: all the main character are portrayed by actors,and not only do they re-enact various scenes from Jane’s life but give face to face interviews to the camera. The cast is very well chosen: John Standing is a sympathetic and kind Reverend Austen. Phyllis Logan, a sensible and straightforward Mrs Austen. My favourite was Jack Davenport as the ever so slightly arrogant Henry Austen, so sure his mother and sisters needed very little financial support upon which to live after the death of Mr Austen. Yes, well…
I do wish this were available to buy on DVD: it would make perfect viewing for GCSE students wanting a short, snappy but accurate overview of Jane Austen’s life and times.
I remember viewing it in 2002 and liking it: my opinion has not changed after seeing it again on Tuesday evening. It is not available to view on the BBC iPlayer, but it will be broadcast again on Sunday 11th September at 7.10p.m. and very early on Monday morning, the 12th September, at 1.50a.m. Go here for all the details.
…borrowing freely from the Muriel Spark novel ( one of my favourites too, by the way) is the official title given by the BBC to Amanda Vickery’s forthcoming documentary on Jane Austen, which will be aired sometime in December.
The BBC’s press office has released this plug for it, which gives an indication of the tone and content:
To mark the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense And Sensibility, Professor Amanda Vickery, one of the leading chroniclers of Georgian England, explores the ebb and flow of Austen’s popularity and the hold her fiction has on people today.
In this 60-minute programme, Vickery considers what it is about Austen’s plots and characters that continue to delight, amuse, console and provoke. Her fans insist her current popularity is due to the timelessness of the fictional world Austen created, but for Vickery the question is: why have her novels gone in and out of fashion? What interests Amanda is how different periods and generations have looked for their own reflection in the characters and plots of the novels. She wants to work out what that says about them, as well as about Austen.
Interviewing a variety of literary scholars, film directors and costumed devotees who attend the Austen conventions, Vickery also views the Sotherby’s sale of an incredibly rare, handwritten manuscript of an unfinished Austen novel.
The Prime Of Miss Jane Austen is part of Books On The BBC 2011.
As you know, Amanda is currently dashing all around the country filming this production, and will be attending the Jane Austen festival in Bath in September to observe and film some of the proceedings. Not in costume though,as she has made VERY clear on Twitter I do think the production sounds intriguing, and I am very much looking forward to watching it. It is high time that we Thinking Austen Women( and Gentlemen) had something interesting to watch on television
As soon as I get anymore news I will, of course, let you know. And yes, The Jolly Girls Outing for this year is now officially over, and a marvellous time was had by all, thank you all for your good wishes. Also the exhausting process of getting one’s dear daughter into University has been achieved. *Heaves great sigh of relief* Normal service will, therefore, now resume
