BATH, ENGLAND.- The Jane Austen Museum in Bath has unveiled a "definitive" portrait of British author Jane Austen painted by Melissa Dring, an expert in forensic portraits. The artist recently made a portrait of Italian composer Vivaldi. The Jane Austen Museum commissioned Dring to make a portrait of Austen as she would have looked during her time in Bath. Austen left the city of Bath in 1816 after living there for 15 years. She wrote "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma".

 

Melissa Dring studied at Winchester College of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools. She also trained at the FBI training center at Quantico, Virginia. She has also worked as a forensic artists with several police forces in the UK.  Dring used information from Austen’s contemporaries and other information from the early 19th Century to do this portrait.

 

David Baldock stated, "Those who have seen it so far are struck by the eyes. Unlike all the other images of Jane, this one has a real light and intelligence."