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Dr. Newman asks his friend Dr. Bloxam to pass a portrait to Morland Rice, a grandson of Jane Austen's brother Edward. The extract belongs to the later history of Austen's reputation: it records how a picture believed to show her reached the family. Newman's identification of both sitter and painter is a claim, not an established fact. Even the 1913 account, pp. 62–63 acknowledges uncertainty about the likeness and attribution.
I have another picture that I wish to go to your neighbour, Morland Rice. It is a portrait of Jane Austen the novelist, by Zoffany. The picture was given to my stepmother by her friend Colonel Austen of Kippington, Kent, because she was a great admirer of her works.
Extract from Life and Letters (1913), p. 62.