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Jane Beetham Read ( – 16 January 1857) was an English portrait painter who began by working in the studio of her mother,
Isabella Beetham Isabella Beetham was an 18th-century British silhouette artist. She began her career by cutting the silhouette images. After studying painting with successful miniature portraitist John Smart, Beetham painted silhouettes to be framed or miniatur ...
, painting silhouette portraits in the 1790s. She studied under
John Opie John Opie (16 May 1761 – 9 April 1807) was an English historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, including members of the British Royal Family, and others who were notable in the artistic and literary ...
and exhibited her works at the
Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...
between 1794 and 1797.


Early life

Jane Beetham was born about 1773 to Edward and
Isabella Beetham Isabella Beetham was an 18th-century British silhouette artist. She began her career by cutting the silhouette images. After studying painting with successful miniature portraitist John Smart, Beetham painted silhouettes to be framed or miniatur ...
. She was the granddaughter of
William Betham William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conq ...
of
Little Strickland Little Strickland is a small village and civil parish in the Eden district of Cumbria, England. It is about from Penrith and from the small town of Appleby-in-Westmorland. The village has one place of worship and a telephone box. The populat ...
in
Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. ...
, England.
Mary Matilda Betham Mary Matilda Betham, known by family and friends as Matilda Betham (16 November 1776 – 30 September 1852), was an English diarist, poet, woman of letters, and miniature portrait painter. She exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1804 to ...
was her cousin. Jane was the first of six children. Her brother, William was born in 1774. Her other siblings were Harriet, Charles, Cecilia, and Alfred. The Beethams first lived in Cow Lane, Clerkenwell, London and then Little Queen Street,
Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon ...
, London. They moved to 26 and 27
Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was n ...
in 1785. Her mother operated a silhouette portrait studio and her father sold his patented washing machines in the buildings that housed their residence.


Education and career

Read painted portraits from the 1790s until 1815. She painted silhouettes, generally on glass, for her mother from the early 1790s until 1797. Read's work was influenced by her mother's style and was often framed in pearwood or papier-mache. Her name (Miss Beetham) appeared on the sixth of seven trade labels issued by Isabella's business. The sixth label was used in the 1790s. In the late 1790s, Jane developed her own business with her own trade label. She added brass or ormolu frames as her career progressed. She studied painting under
John Opie John Opie (16 May 1761 – 9 April 1807) was an English historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, including members of the British Royal Family, and others who were notable in the artistic and literary ...
and was the only female student that he taught. He painted her portrait between 1790 and 1800. Using a painting made by Opie, Read painted a portrait of Dr. Priestly. They may have had a romantic relationship. It was a concern of her uncle, Rev.
William Betham William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conq ...
(1749–1839) who warned Isabella about Jane and Opie spending too much time together. His comments soured William's relationship with the Beetham's. Opie's wife, the former Mary Bunn, ran off with another man and the Opies were divorced on 23 December 1796. Opie was adamantly rejected when he asked Edward Beetham if he could marry Jane. Soon after, Jane married John Read. As she began painting miniature portraits, she developed her own personal style. She often framed sitter's faces with dark foliage of landscaped backgrounds. She used a combination of techniques to depict bone structure, used stippling and hatching to capture the subject's features, and used a combination of thick and thin paint brush strokes. Her tools included two sizes of needles, for details, and two sizes of brushes. Read also created works using her own
aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used ...
method. Read exhibited portraits at the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...
in London for four consecutive years, from 1794 to 1797. A total of 15 paintings were shown, including ''Cordelia Angelica Read'', ''A Lady Reading a Letter'', ''Andromeda'', ''Eloisa'', and ''King Lear and Cordelia''.


Personal life

She married John Read, a solicitor from London around 1797 or in 1798. He was much older, wealthy, and eccentric. They had a daughter, Cordelia Angelica Read and lived on Lamb's Conduit Street. Jane's father died in 1809 and his estate was divided equally amongst her mother and the six Beetham children. John died in 1847. Jane and Cordelia, known as the "old sisters" for their eccentric behavior, lived together in Stamford Street, London. The house was suggested to be haunted, according to newspaper articles. Cordelia remained single her entire life. Jane died in London on 16 January 1857. Upon her death in December 1871, Cordelia left her mother's pictures and a legacy of £100,000 () to the Brompton Consumption Hospital, which was used to build an extension to the hospital. A memorial slab was laid in her honor under a central window. The hospital also received the Read's art collection which included a number of paintings by Opie and by Beetham. Cordelia had lived as if she was destitute and was negligent in the care of material items. Many of the paintings needed to be refurbished and preserved, which was funded by selling off some of the paintings. The hospital kept the paintings that Opie painted of his mother, Jane, and her sisters Cecelia and Harriet. They sold the painting of Mary Betham Bligh, Admiral
William Bligh Vice-Admiral William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. The mutiny on the HMS ''Bounty'' occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command; after being set adrift i ...
's wife; ''The Card Players''; and a self-portrait. Another £100,000 was given to a relative in accordance with Cordelia's will.


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Jane Beetham 1857 deaths 18th-century English painters 18th-century English women artists 19th-century English painters 19th-century English women artists Artists from London English portrait painters English women painters Silhouettists 18th-century women painters 19th-century women painters