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Jane Austen portrait sells for £164,500 at Sotheby's | Jane Austen portrait sells for £164,500 at Sotheby's |
(about 7 hours later) | |
Sotheby's has sold a watercolour portrait of Jane Austen which is widely acknowledged as the closest likeness of her there is. | Sotheby's has sold a watercolour portrait of Jane Austen which is widely acknowledged as the closest likeness of her there is. |
The portrait sold for £135,000, or £164,500 including buyer's commission. The original estimate had been £150,000-£200,000. | |
The portrait was commissioned by the writer's nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, a vicar of Bray, in 1869, more than 50 years after her death. It is based on a not terribly accomplished sketch drawn by that Austen's sister Cassandra drew. | |
The portrait has been reproduced innumerable times and an engraving of it will be used on the £10 note. Before its sale it had been passed down through the Austen family. | The portrait has been reproduced innumerable times and an engraving of it will be used on the £10 note. Before its sale it had been passed down through the Austen family. |
The portrait is not to everyone's taste. Paula Byrne, an Austen biographer, called it a "Victorian airbrushing". | |
The novelist Joanna Trollope disagrees. She said: "This portrait was commissioned half a century after Jane Austen's death, so it can hardly be claimed as a life likeness. All the same, it is all we have, and it has a lack of pretension that suits our first properly acclaimed great woman novelist." | The novelist Joanna Trollope disagrees. She said: "This portrait was commissioned half a century after Jane Austen's death, so it can hardly be claimed as a life likeness. All the same, it is all we have, and it has a lack of pretension that suits our first properly acclaimed great woman novelist." |
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