TPO 12 – task 1

The professor discusses the portrait and asserts that it is loosely related to the Austen family, since the arguments in the article is not convincing. The information he presents contradicts the facts outlined in the reading passage.

First, the speaker makes the point that when the portrait was firstly authorized, Jane was deed for 17 years; hence, her family members had never seen her. Thus, how can they recognize her face and endorse the claim that the girl in the portrait is Jane Austen. However, the article indicates that the Austen family itself has endorsed the claim that the girl in the portrait is Jane Austen.

Second, the lecturer posits that Austen family was large enough so that countless teenagers resembling Jane might be existed between them. Therefore, the girl in the portrait and the sketch can be one of the teenagers in the Austen family instead of Jane. Moreover, some sophisticated people cited that the girl is actually one of the teenagers in the Austen family named Mary. On the other hand, the reading passage specifies that the face in the portrait clearly resembles the one in Cassandra's sketch depicting Jane.

Third, the professor states that other evidences are in direct contrast with the evidence of Ozias Humphrey style, which show a different date for the painting of portrait. According to the stamp on the back of the portrait, William Leg sold the portrait in London when Jane was 27 years old; consequently, this evidence refutes the assertion that Jane was a teenager when the portrait was painted. On the contrary, the article concludes that Jane was a teenager when the portrait was painted based only on Ozias Humphrey's style of painting and the time period in which he was an active painter.