A Literary Portrait Re-instated

In 1996 Deirdre Le Faye published an article, A Literary Portrait Re-Examined. Jane Austen and Mary Anne Campion, in the journal The Book Collector in which she stated her opinion that the Rice portrait of Jane Austen by Ozias Humphry is not of the novelist, but of a distant cousin, Mary Anne Campion. She also announced that the portrait was painted by the Reverend Matthew William Peters (1742-1814). In support of this theory she published three miniatures which she stated categorically were of Jane, Elizabeth, and Frances Motley Austen, Jane Austen’s second cousins. Le Faye stated that a fourth miniature of ‘a young girl holding a bird cage’ was Mary Anne Campion, daughter of Jane Austen’s second cousin.

Following publication of the article we asked Deirdre Le Faye for the whereabouts of these miniatures so that we could check her information. Le Faye refused to tell us where the miniatures were or who owned them. It was fifteen years later that we were finally able to locate them in the ownership of other distant members of the Austen family. The miniatures had been given to the father of the present owners by Charlotte Marianne (May) Harrison. Mrs Harrison was the great-granddaughter of John Austen, the third son of Francis Motley Austen and she is also believed to have inherited the portrait of Cassandra Austen, which is now missing.

The owners kindly gave us and Jane Odiwe, a family friend, complete access and we were permitted to examine and photograph the miniatures at leisure. We were also able to see all the correspondence relating to the miniatures and also Mrs Harrison’s notes, stating who she believed the subjects might be. Only one of the five miniatures we examined had any identification at all. This was the eldest daughter of Francis Motley Austen. Her picture had a slip of paper attached to the back, which read ‘Jane Austen, who married William Campion’. It also bore W.S. Lethbridge’s name and an address in the Strand in London. The other three women and the child had no identification at all and no indication of the artist. The miniature which Miss Le Faye states unequivocally as being ‘Mary Anne Campion’ was described by Mrs Harrison only as ‘a little girl holding a birdcage’. With the exception of the named portrait, these miniatures could be any members of the extended Austen family. Le Faye also states as a fact that "These miniatures were painted by W.S. Lethbridge, who visited Canterbury in 1805." But this is by no means proven. These miniatures may have been painted by W S Lethbridge, they may have been painted in 1805 and they probably depict members of the extended family of Francis Motley Austen. But there is no evidence that this is the case and certainly no evidence that they are portraits of the individuals claimed.

Having, without any evidence, asserted that the portrait of the little girl holding a birdcage was Mary Anne Campion, Le Faye then speculated that her grandmother, Elizabeth Motley Austen, unhappy with the unflattering miniature, had a full sized portrait commissioned of her eldest grand-daughter. This is completely unfounded conjecture and it is obvious from a comparison of the two portraits that these two girls bore very little resemblance to one another.

Le Faye then stated that "it will be noted that the girl in the so-called Jane Austen picture wears a dress almost exactly like Mary Anne Campion's i.e. definitely 1805 onwards". However - as we have shown on the Costume section of this website - this ubiquitous style of dress was worn by young girls both before and after 1800.

Le Faye claimed that Jane Austen’s second cousin Thomas Austen, the first documented owner, either mistook his niece for his second cousin or that he pretended the painting was of Jane Austen when he knew it was not. Both claims are utterly ridiculous. As Professor Claudia Johnson pointed out and as is now obvious from the accumulated evidence presented on this website, it is utterly impossible that the Rice Portrait could be Mary Anne Campion. Far too many people knew Jane Austen for the painting to be a case of mistaken identity.

Le Faye’s attribution to Peters is equally unlikely and has never been supported by any art expert. Peters, born in 1742, achieved some fame and notoriety as an artist, known primarily for his risqué portraits of half-naked women. There is no evidence whatsoever in support of him painting the Rice Portrait which in any event has now been proved beyond question to be the work of Ozias Humphry.

Deirdre Le Faye has long been an opponent of the Rice Portrait. Her lifetime contribution to the more general study of Jane Austen has been immensely valuable, and we salute her in particular for her astonishing Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family 1600-2000), published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. However, the fact that Le Faye persisted in her Chronology with the Peters attribution and to insist that the painting is of Mary Ann Campion, is an indication of Le Faye’s characteristic refusal to allow inconvenient facts to interfere with her theories.

An altered date

In her article in the Book Collector, Le Faye also made a very surprising mistake in transcribing a date. As the date appeared in a letter which Le Faye herself discovered was in the Austen-Leigh archive which had been previously overlooked, we find it very difficult to understand how this could be an accident.

The letter was from Fanny Caroline Lefroy, Jane Austen’s great-niece, to her cousin Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh and was dated 23 October 1883. Fanny was discussing the Rice Portrait which had recently been returned to John Morland Rice, a great-nephew of Jane Austen in another branch of the family. The letter is held at the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester.

Le Faye transcribed a portion of the letter for her article and published it as follows:

I never heard before of the portrait of Jane Austen. I feel sure it never was either at Steventon or Chawton. My Mother & Aunt Caroline would certainly have recollected it had they ever seen it. In 1787 the year it was painted she was a school girl in the Abbey School here.' (Austen-Leigh archive).

But Fanny Lefroy was not stating a firm date of 1787. For, despite all her experience in transcribing letters and documenting the history of the Austen family, Deirdre Le Faye provided an incorrect date. Fanny Lefroy did not write 1787. She wrote 1789. You can see this for yourself in an image of Fanny's original letter here:

The date is significant.

John Morland Rice, who had been given the portrait in 1883, had been advised that the portrait was painted by Johan Zoffany. But by the time Deirdre Le Faye was writing her article in 1996, Zoffany had been discounted and the artist most frequently connected to the portrait was Ozias Humphry. If the portrait really had been painted in 1787 as Le Faye transcribed, then it could not have been painted by either Zoffany OR Humphry for in that year both men were in India trying to paint their way to fortune - Zoffany with considerably more success than Humphry. Ozias Humphry returned to England in the summer of 1788 and by the autumn of that year he was visiting his brother William Humphry, who was vicar at Kemsing & Seal near Sevenoaks and a neighbour of George Austen’s step-brother, where Ozias Humphry spent a great deal of his time.

conclusion

Deirdre Le Faye’s article has long been superseded by new evidence, but we still hear the argument repeated that the Rice Portrait is of Jane Austen’s niece and so we feel it is important to put the record straight and remind readers that Deirdre Le Faye’s theory is backed by no evidence whatsoever.