New Book | Jane Austen’s Wardrobe
From Yale UP:
Hilary Davidson, Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023), 240 Pages, ISBN: 978-0300263602, $35.
What did Jane Austen wear? Acclaimed dress historian and Austen expert Hilary Davidson reveals, for the first time, the wardrobe of one of the world’s most celebrated authors. Despite her acknowledged brilliance on the page, Jane Austen has all too often been accused of dowdiness in her appearance. Drawing on Austen’s 161 known letters, as well as her own surviving garments and accessories, this book assembles examples of the variety of clothes she would have possessed—from gowns and coats to shoes and undergarments—to tell a very different story. The Jane Austen Hilary Davidson discovers is alert to fashion trends but thrifty and eager to reuse and repurpose clothing. Her renowned irony and wit peppers her letters, describing clothes, shopping, and taste. Jane Austen’s Wardrobe offers the rare pleasure of a glimpse inside the closet of a stylish dresser and perpetually fascinating writer.
Hilary Davidson is associate professor and chair of MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. She has curated, lectured, broadcast, and published extensively in her field and is author of Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion.
2-Day Course | Reynolds and His Circle
Joshua Reynolds, Self-Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA, detail, ca. 1780, oil on panel, 127 × 102 cm
(London: Royal Academy of Arts, 03/1394)
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This fall at the RA in London:
Reynolds and His Circle: A Weekend Course
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 30 September and 1 October 2023, 10.00–5.00 each day
2023 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Royal Academy’s first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792). This two-day art history weekend explores the life and work of one of Britain’s most important artists. The course offers participants an in-depth insight into Sir Joshua Reynolds and his work—via lectures, talks, and archive visits with leading art historians and experts.
The weekend will contextualise the many paintings and prints of Reynolds, looking at his work through various prisms: from the importance of portraiture and the rise of celebrity culture, to questions of Britishness and empire. We will explore what it meant to be Britain’s leading artist at the end of the eighteenth century and learn about his intrinsic role in the creation of the Royal Academy of Arts. The course will also address Reynolds’s artistic contemporaries and followers including Thomas Gainsborough, Angelica Kauffman, and Sir Thomas Lawrence. As well as providing a snapshot of the artistic life of eighteenth-century society, the course takes an object-based approach—looking at some of Reynolds’s most famous works in depth, along with a visit to the RA archive to see ephemera related to the artist and the founding of the RA.
No prior knowledge is required and debate and discussion are encouraged. The course fee of £420 includes light refreshments and a wine reception at the end of the first day.
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