"the little bit(two inches wide)of Ivory on which I work...."

A portrait of Jane Austen by Cassandra Austen,now in the National Portrait Gallery.This particular drawing was done on paper but it serves a similar purpose to those done on ivory that Jane refers to.

Here is my picture of Jane's portrait .

An example of a miniature portrait done in watercolours on an oval of ivory at the V&A.
Another example of watercolour on ivory.
These two pictures can be found at the V&A. There is a whole gallery devoted to miniature portraiture there.
“THE LITTLE BIT OF IVORY ON WHICH I WORK.”

Jane Austen wrote to her nephew, James Edward Austen, on Monday 16th December 1816. She congratulated him on leaving Winchester College and commiserated with him about his time there. Jane writes to him in terms of an equal in novel writing.

“Uncle Henry writes very superior sermons-You and I must try and get hold of one or two and put them into our novels.”

She is an aunt encouraging, praising and nurturing her nephew’s efforts. Then she explains the difference between their writing; his is,
“strong, manly , spirited Sketches full of Variety and Glow.”
Hers is comparable to a,
“ little bit(two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?”

It was the practice, in 1816, to paint miniature portraits in fine detail on fine slivers of ivory cut from elephant tusks. They were intended to not only show the likeness of the sitter but also to try and capture their personality.


Thirty one years after Jane wrote her letter, in 1847, Charlotte Bronte has Jayne Eyre using the miniature portrait as a sort of talisman or voodoo doll to expurge her feelings for Mr Rochester and her thoughts and feelings about Blanche Ingram. She decides to draw a self portrait in chalks on a piece of glass and a portrait in watercolours of Blanche Ingram on , “a piece of smooth ivory.”

Susan Pearce,who has researched the meaning of artefacts, says that objects not only carry messages from their conception and creation, but gain messages as the years and centuries pass. They are handled and used in different contexts and so have new histories and meanings attached to them.

In Sir Walter Scotts famous review of Emma, he compares his style of the grandiose fantasy adventure or as he writes, his, “Bow wow,” style, with Jane’s detailed observance of everyday life and manners. He hints that these are new developments in the novel and in his praise of Jane’s work, he is seen to be encouraging this new novel style.

Jane in her letter to her nephew one year earlier is describing the same development in the novel when she points out the differences between her style and the style of her nephew using,
" the little bit of ivory on which I work," as a metaphor for her own style.

The miniature portrait was a purveyor of fine detailed true likeness. It was an artistic process. Jane used it as a metaphor for her writers style. Emily Bronte used it as a way of comparing individuals and as a way of controlling and guiding emotions. We ourselves become integrated in the interpretation. We are bringing our beliefs and insights to the interpretation of the miniature too.



References:
Sir Walter Scott’s Review of Emma
Posted in Books, Emma, Jane Austen, Literature, Review by onlyanovel on January 19th, 2008
http://onlyanovel.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/sir-walter-scotts-review-of-emma/

Pearce, Susan, Objects as meaning; or narrating the past.
In: Interpreting objects and collections.
Routledge 1994


Bronte,Charlotte, Jayne Ayre
Penguin Classics, London 2006

Le Faye, Deirdre (Ed) Jane Austen’s Letter’s (New Edition)
Oxford University Press 1997


The National Portrait Gallery
http://www.npg.org.uk/