Plot Twist Uncovers Austen Brother’s Portrait Essay, Research Paper

Plot twist uncovers Austen brother’s portraitFor someone who has just come into a fortune, the small boy looks remarkably cross. A portrait of Jane Austen’s younger brother, Edward, painted at a point when the family’s prospects had been transformed in an outrageous plot twist worthy of her novels, will be unveiled today in the museum at her home in the Hampshire village of Chawton. Chawton is part of the plot: it was, then as now, a prosperous village with handsome Georgian buildings and a superb Jacobean manor house, surrounded by rolling farmland – and the small boy was about to inherit the lot. Edward, third son in the large family of a well educated country clergyman of modest means, would soon own thousands of acres across three estates, farms and woodlands, Norman churches, two mansions, and the entire village. He would give the rosy redbrick house on the corner of the village street to his widowed mother and unmarried sisters, Jane and Cassandra. There, on a small table by the window, Jane would complete Pride and Prejudice and the other novels that have made her one of the best loved authors in English literature. Tom Carpenter, administrator of the museum, believes the portrait was commissioned by the Rev Austen’s second cousin, Thomas Knight, and his wife, who met the Austens on honeymoon and took such a liking to Edward that they took him with them on the rest of the trip. It was almost certainly painted a few years later, when it was clear they would not have children, and they adopted Edward and made him their heir. The boy changed his name to Edward Knight. The museum has acquired the portrait through another extraordinary chance. It has only been on display once in 200 years, when it was loaned to an Austen exhibition where it was seen by Peter Russell-Jones, a trustee of the museum. A few months ago he wandered into an antique dealer’s in Dorchester on Thames and spotted Edward, unidentified and artist unknown. The museum has acquired the painting with a grant from the V&A purchase fund. It has optimistically been attributed to Romney, who is known to have worked for the Knights; but, although the face is very well painted, the body and background are clearly the work of studio hacks. The assistant administrator, Ann Channon, concedes fondly that Edward was not the most handsome of romantic heirs. “His eldest brother, James, was generally held to have the looks in that family. Poor Edward, that pinched little mouth and undershot jaw are almost Habsburg – though he did lose that undershot look when he was older – all his teeth fell out, bless him.”