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Unseen Portrait of Jane Austen Discovered?

Biographer is sure drawing depicts author

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 6, 2011 4:00 PM CST

(Newser) – There are only two accepted portraits of Jane Austen, one based on the other—but an Austen biographer believes she's found a third. Paula Byrne's husband bought her a graphite drawing sold as an "imaginary portrait" of the writer, labeled "Miss Jane Austin." Byrne says it's anything but imaginary. "That genre doesn't exist, and this looks too specific, too like the rest of her family, to have been drawn from imagination," she tells the Guardian. Go there or to the BBC (which plans to air a documentary on the image) to see it.

A newly discovered portrait may show Jane Austen. (Shutterstock)

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Unseen Portrait of Jane Austen Discovered?

Biographer is sure drawing depicts author

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