Portrait of Miss Jane Reade

William Beechey, artist

1753–1839

Portrait of Miss Jane Reade, 1813

Where object was made: England, United Kingdom

Material/technique: canvas; oil

Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 213.4 x 129.5 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 84 x 51 in

Credit line: Gift of Walstein Findlay

Accession number: 1958.0126

Not on display

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Social Histories

This painting of Miss Julia Jane Reade was commissioned by her brother when she was 23 years old. She stands with her harp, a tuning key in her hand. Her brother commissioned the painting in 1813, the same year Jane Austen published Pride and Prejudice, a novel that gives creative context to this portrait. The harp was a fashionable instrument for wealthy young women to play.

A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself; and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded in the rich foliage of summer, was enough to catch any man’s heart. The season, the scene, the air, were all favorable to tenderness and sentiment.
~ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814)

Despite this painting showing off her accomplishment, Miss Reade remained unmarried and lived with her mother until her death, when she was 47. Her mother lived for another 10 years after that. The lives of unmarried women from this time period are often poorly documented, but a few hints remain about the things that were important to Miss Reade.
Her last will and testament show she was wealthy enough to have holdings worth legal documentation. She left all of her possessions to her mother, except for some money to be given to the village coal fund, which provided coal in the winter to elderly residents, and a few things for “the keeping up of our little school.” This school was supported by Miss Reade and her mother, and was held in the Manor Farm house on their property, teaching village boys and girls how to read. Several years after her death, a new school was built and continued to educate the children of Oddington until 1960, when the school closed.

The Object Speaks

A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.
—Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813
Miss Reade poses with an elegant pedal harp, nearly ready to engage her audience with a gentle melody. Rather than accurately depicting Miss Reade playing her harp while seated, Beechey lets the viewer imagine her musical accomplishments while displaying her shapely figure to its greatest advantage.

The Object Speaks

Archive Label 2003:
Beechey was the favorite painter of King George III and Queen Charlotte, who knighted him after he produced a monumental portrait of the King reviewing troops in Hyde Park, London. Although not as technically brilliant as his contemporaries, Thomas Lawrence and John Hoppner, his works are still solid and tasteful, distinctly in the classical tradition of Joshua Reynolds.

Jane Reade was the sister of Sir John Reade, who commissioned several pictures of himself, his mother, and his sister from Beechey in the years around 1813. This portrait in particular can be dated from Beechey’s account books. Her pose with a harp has a long tradition in English portraiture.