Watercolour painting by Cassandra Austen

Object name: Watercolour painting ‘Hunter in a Landscape’

Object number: CHWJA:JAH230

Category: Object

Description: Watercolour painting depicting a hunter and a dog walking through a rural landscape, by Cassandra Elizabeth Austen painted in 1802.

Made: 1802

Context: In 1784, when Cassandra was ten years old, Rev. Austen paid the watercolour artist John Claude Nattes £11 9s to give drawing lessons to the Austen children.  The first known examples of Cassandra’s work that survive are the small caricatures of monarchs dating from 1791 which illustrate Jane’s History of England by a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian, a book that Jane dedicated to her beloved sister.

This painting, which is dated 1802, shows a huntsman carrying a gun and followed by his dog walking in a rural landscape.

Provenance: The picture passed through the family of Jane’s brother Charles. It was given to Jane Austen’s House in 1994 by the family of Brigadier Peter Willan Mead, a great-great grandson of Charles Austen, in memory of the Brigadier.

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