Jane Austen (1775-1817), by Cassandra Austen, c. 1810.This morning Willem and I spent several house at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), here in London. It was amazing to see so many of the original portraits (and some new ones) again that we had used for entries in TRC Needles - especially the Tudor and Stuart portraits with their blackwork collars, ruffs, embroidered gloves and so forth. We saw for instance the portrait of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII. We also saw a double portrait of Lady Dacre and her son George (c. 1559). The same formidable lady is also portrayed (click here) on a canvas now in the National Portrait Gallery of Canada, made by the Dutch artist Hans Ewouts.
We sneaked a look at the tiny miniature of Jane Austen - it is so delicate. Last summer we visited various places linked to her, as for instance her grave in Winchester Cathedral and the house where she died, but also the places where she walked around, and danced, in Bath (see our blog of 7 August 2016).
It is worth noting that the NPG has a fashion trail by Lucinda Chambers, the Fashion Director of the British Vogue. It is callled "Height of Fashion Trail" and covers 500 years of British fashion in a select number of portraits. It would be fun to do an embroidery and/or lace trail using the NPG Collection!
Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 20 January 2017
