COMPTON VERNEY.- 18 July marks the 200 the anniversary of Jane Austen’s death and provides a timely opportunity to reflect on her life, times and work. Compton Verney – thought by many to be the real-life setting for the fictional Thornton Lacey in Austen’s Mansfield Park – is marking the bicentenary with a special display drawn from its remarkable collection of portrait miniatures.

The Warwickshire Art Gallery and Park is home to one of the most important collections of this art form held anywhere in the world. The Dumas Collection consists of 842 works in total, and has been generously loaned on a long term basis to Compton Verney by Simon Dumas.

Jane Austen was an enthusiastic miniaturist who used the medium to capture her friends and family. She famously compared her novels to her own miniatures, declaring that they were “little bits (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a brush.” Bath, the city with which she is so closely associated, was a centre of miniature production: of the 160 artists working in Bath at the end of the 18th century, roughly half were miniaturists.

Jane often deftly used references to miniatures to subtly convey background information or gently move the narrative along in her novels.

In Sense and Sensibility, she wrote: “Oh, Elinor!” she cried, “I have such a secret to tell you about Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr Willoughby very soon.” “You have said so,” replied Elinor, “almost every day since they first met on Highchurch Down; and they had not known each other a week, I believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great uncle.”

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth is shown miniatures of both Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy during her tour of Pemberley. “And that,” said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, “is my master – and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the other – about eight years ago.”

The focus for Compton Verney’s latest display of miniatures is female artists, linking its newly-interpreted Victorian Women’s Library (sited in the room beyond the British Portraits, which opened to the public in June with guest curators including actor Emma Watson) and the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death.

The display features examples from the Regency era of the later 18th and early 19th centuries, when women miniaturists were most prolific, with a surprising number making a career of it.

Visitors to Compton Verney will also discover that the world of miniatures was closely connected to women’s literature, with many of the artists in this special display being both professional miniaturists and published authors.

Painted by Sophia Howell in 1788, The Honourable Mrs Charlotte Twistleton depicts a remote cousin of the Austen’s whom was notorious for the court case of 1798, in which her husband cited both her acting career and her adultery as pretexts for divorce. Thomas Twistleton subsequently took holy orders, fled England and later became Bishop of Colombo; Charlotte, however, died a penniless actress in the United States.

Miniaturist Sophia Howell, who worked in London, exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1781 and 1788, but little is heard of her after that.

Mary Betham, who painted the gallery’s Unidentified Girl (1808) was a minister's daughter from Suffolk and a talented woman of great resourcefulness. She was largely self-educated from her father’s library, but went on to publish a number of books, ranging from poetry (both her own and translations from Italian) to works of politics and history, including A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country. As a young woman, when her family was in straitened circumstances, she taught herself miniature painting in order to support herself, eventually exhibiting her work at the Royal Academy.

Similarly, Louisa Stuart Costello (1799-1870) took up painting to help support her family when she was 16, following the death of her father. She worked in Paris as a miniaturist before moving to London and exhibiting at the Royal Academy in the 1820s and 1830s. Like Betham, she published on a wide array of subjects, including several books of poetry (some bearing her own illustrations) as well as novels, literary studies, travel writing and a book titled Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen. Costello’s Unknown Gentleman (1825) is a fine example of her work.

Anne C Turnbull (1800-1862), who painted the watercolour on ivory Miss Grey in 1828 (above right) was born Anne Charlotte Fayerman but worked under her married names of Anne Turnbull and Mrs Valentine Bartholomew. She also wrote plays and poems and published at least two works: a farce entitled It’s Only My Aunt, in 1825, and a collection of poetry, Songs of Azreal, in 1840.

Though the sitter for Unidentified Gentleman, (c.1845) remains anonymous, the artist Elisah Lamont (c.1800-1870) was much better known and had some very famous friends. She was already a successful miniaturist in her native Ireland when she relocated to London, where she befriended Dickens and Ruskin. In 1844 Lamont published Christmas Rhymes, or Three Night’s Revelry, written and illustrated with her sister Frances.

Albeit A Young Lady, Wearing an Elaborate High Collared Pale Blue Dress (c.1910) was signed by ‘Theodora Jessie Corrie’, the true identity of the artists is something of a mystery. A ‘Jessie E Corrie’ is recorded as having exhibited at the Society of Miniaturists in 1910, while a ‘Theodora Corrie’ published at least three novels at about the same time: In Scorn of Consequence, The Luck of the Highland and Petrel Darcy.

The Dumas Loan can be seen in the British Portraits gallery at Compton Verney, along with remarkable collections such as the nationally-designated Chinese Bronzes and Britain’s best collection of British Folk Art.