Jane Austen collection with not one but TWO hidden paintings! (SOLD)

Painting a split double fore-edge inspired by 'Emma' and 'Mansfield Park'

Hello friends!

I’ve mostly been absent from Substack for Lent (trying to be a good girl about my internet and social media usage!) — but I’ve been working on this vanishing fore-edge project since the beginning of February, and now that it’s complete, I’m overjoyed to be able to show it here at last!

I started with Wilco’s beautiful leatherbound volume of six Jane Austen novels, which simply begged for a grand illustration:

The book was very thick, so it wouldn’t flex enough to fit into the book press. So I planned a ‘split double’ painting. This is where the book is ‘split’ in the middle and you paint on either side of the fore-edge split. Here are two excellent examples from Martin Frost:

foredgefrost1

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And…here is mine — not as impressive as Martin’s magnificent spreads but perhaps one day I shall attain such heights of artistry!

On the right-hand side is a painting of Emma and Mr Knightley (who appears to be giving Emma one of his famous lectures), and on the left-hand side a scene from Mansfield Park (where Edmund comes to collect Fanny from Portsmouth).

Here are closeups of each side:

And here’s what it looks like in the press — this is when I had just finished the Fanny and Edmund painting.

I had to use a ribbon around the back, to keep the opposite side from falling back and placing undue strain on the spine while I painted. You’ll also notice the baking paper underneath — my book covers have been sticking to the varnished press because of the hot Aussie weather and the downward pressure of the press, but baking paper beneath the book did the trick!

Now, for some behind-the-scenes shots! The Emma painting was the first side I attempted and you can see the progression here from under-sketch to fully painted edge:

Emma was the most time-consuming of the two sides, what with researching furnishings and planning the colour palette, and then all the tiny details in the painting itself! Also: painting cursive text is incredibly difficult on the bumpy fore-edge of a book. The paint always wants to run parallel with the page lines…!

However, it was worth the effort — the Georgian-style armchair is one of my favourite elements. A sample of the research that inspired this piece:

Now for the Fanny and Edmund art! I only vaguely remembered Austen’s novel, Mansfield Park, as I last read it in 2016. So what better excuse for a re-read?

Back in 2016, I found Mansfield Park very dull, but this time, I discovered there was a great deal more to it than I picked up on my first reading. I’ll save you all the literary analysis, but the secret to reading Mansfield Park is to realise it’s not a comedy or a romance like her other novels — it’s a complex social critique, and every sentence is so packed with meaning that you have to re-read them several times before you realise what Austen is implying. Probably her most abstruse work — but I am now thoroughly converted to the side of fans who consider it among her most skillful novels.

There were two scenes that stood out during my re-read: Edmund comforting Fanny on the stairs of Mansfield Park when she arrives as a young girl, and the moment when, many years later, he arrives at Portsmouth to fetch her back. I decided on the latter, and this one was much easier to paint — because it had large areas that could be covered quickly with a few long brush strokes, instead of dabbing tiny patterns on a chair or teacup!

So there’s another lesson learned — the more intricacy and details you include, the longer it will take. I’m going to work on making my pieces more cohesive like this, as I think this one turned out much better in that regard than the Emma painting.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ‘behind the scenes’ glimpses. It was a new challenge to undertake a ‘split double’ vanishing fore-edge, and I am so happy with the finished piece! Check out other pieces in my Etsy store, Beneath the Gild.

God bless you all, and I wish everyone a blessed Lent as we await the joy of Easter morn!

xx The Inky Baroness