Portrait said to be of Jane Austen fails to sell at auction

NEW YORK -- A portrait of a young girl that some believe is the only known painting of English novelist Jane Austen failed to sell at auction on Thursday. Christie's said no one offered the owner's minimum price for the painting that had been expected to fetch between $400,000 and $800,000... The portrait by English society artist Ozias Humphry was put up for sale by Henry Rice, a distant relative of the writer of classics such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice who died in 1817... In 1948, a leading Austen scholar dismissed the authenticity of the portrait, saying the style of costume the subject wears does not match the date. But Rice and his family have said they never doubted the girl wearing a long white dress and carrying a parasol was their ancestor. The painting is thought to date from 1788 or 1789 when Austen would have been about 14.

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Controversial, unsold 'Jane Austen' portrait