Lady Jane Franklin is an intriguing figure who has fascinated not just Lendis but a host of historians, authors and artists. In many ways, Lady Jane could be seen as the perfect Victorian wife. She cared for her husband, Sir John Franklin, who was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania)84 from 1836 to 1843, threw lavish dinner parties when she was
governess in Hobart, and supported local charities. In these ways her actions were similar to her predecessor in Hobart, Governor Arthur’s wife, Eliza (Alexander 1999, p. 137). However, this is where the comparison ends. Lady
84 Lady Jane Franklin actually helped promote the name of Tasmania instead of “the
awkward name of Van Diemen and the expletive Land” (in a letter by Sir John Franklin quoted in Woodward 1951, p. 227).
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Jane stepped far beyond the nineteenth-century, socially-constructed boundaries for women – she erected a temple named Ancanthe in the outskirts of Hobart, travelled vast distances (often without her husband) and involved herself in government affairs which led to “charges of ‘petticoat government’” (Russell 2005b, pp. 48-9). Noting this contradiction, biographer Penny Russell describes Lady Jane as “simultaneously an awkward anomaly and a typical participant” of colonial society (2002, p. 19).
Lady Jane and her husband Sir John Franklin have a prominent place in Australian history. There are many references to the Franklins in Tasmania. In Danielle Wood’s Tasmanian novel, The Alphabet of Light and Dark (2003, pp. 156-57), the protagonist observes the name Franklin “attaching itself like a burr to so many Tasmanian things”. Aside from Franklin Square in the centre of Hobart, there is the town of Franklin, the Franklin Ranges, Franklin River, Franklin Street, ‘Lady Jane’s Apple Tree’ on the banks of the Tamar, and Lady Franklin Gallery, which was originally known as Ancanthe.85
There are two main strands characterising interest in Lady Jane: one relates to her adoption of an Aboriginal girl named Mathinna; the other relates to her search for her missing husband, the explorer Sir John Franklin. Many of the accounts of her adoption of Mathinna present her as selfish and ethnocentric. In his acclaimed novel Wanting (2008), Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan wove a story around Lady Jane’s time in Tasmania, her adoption of Mathinna and her quest to find her husband.86 Flanagan portrays
Lady Jane as barren and too concerned with what others think to openly show affection towards her adopted Aboriginal daughter. More recently, a Ten Days
85 For more on the naming of places in Tasmania see Moore-Robinson (1935).
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on the Island installation by Craig Walsh, Digital Odyssey (2011), projected the faces of Lady Jane and Sir John onto trees in Franklin Square that looked at each other, whispered a little and very noticeably blinked. The moving faces brought a vivid presence to the square.87 Underneath Sir John’s statue, a
depiction of Mathinna struggled in jarring, sudden movements within the confines of the plinth. As in Flanagan’s novel in which Mathinna is used as Lady Jane’s social experiment and physically abused by Sir John, this work implied mistreatment towards Mathinna with her body awkwardly crouched and caged within the plinth. In a different, desperate and sorrowful tone, one of Adrienne Eberhard’s poems evokes a loving, motherly figure of Lady Jane who yearned to care and protect Mathinna only to regretfully realise that Mathinna was never really her child (Eberhard 2004, pp. 44-9).
Aside from Mathinna, much of the focus on Lady Jane’s life has been directed at her search for her husband, Sir John Franklin, who failed to return from his quest to discover the North West Passage. From 1850 to 1857, Lady Jane organised many searches for Sir John using her own funds (Elce 2009, p. 22). Despite her agency, she has frequently been remembered in the shadow of her husband as incomplete without him. She has been seen as a tragic heroine who gave her life for love. As the perfectly devout Victorian wife, her heart was perceived to have sailed away in the vessels she arranged to look for her husband. This representation eclipses her strength and independence. An obituary in the New York Times expressed: “Lady Jane’s life will always be
87 Franklin Square is the major site which commemorates Sir John Franklin in Hobart but
it has a somewhat messy history. Franklin Square was never celebrated with an official opening because Hobartians were divided over the direction of Sir John Franklin’s statue – the seafarers thought it was scandalous that his statue had its back to the sea but many thought it would be even worse if his back was turned on Hobart town (Moore-Robinson 1935).
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pointed to as one of wonderful wifely devotion, no less than of the deepest of sorrow” (‘Obituary: Lady Jane Franklin’ 1875).
Lendis was primarily drawn to Lady Jane because she was an outsider whose desires did not always conform to the norms of her time. He sees her as a remarkable woman who did as she pleased, despite attempts to restrict her from doing so.In 2008, Lendis spent time at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England, as an artist in residence. There he searched through diaries, letters and official documents relating to Lady Jane’s search for her husband. Once he became familiar with her cramped handwriting, reading the original documents became “a transcendent experience” for Lendis (Lendis 2010). In the presence of these historic, tangible documents he felt an intimacy with Lady Jane. He was moved by material which had largely been discarded by historians, including personal letters from Lady Jane’s close friends, children and well-wishing strangers who wrote to Lady Jane about their dreams of her finding Sir John. This remarkable sharing of dreams is the kind of peripheral detail in historical record that inspires Lendis, putting him emotionally closer to Lady Jane. As I will illustrate later in this chapter, Lendis does not see Lady Jane as a submissive widow.
Despite her position as governess, there are surprisingly few portraits of Lady Jane made from life. The best known examples, which have adorned the cover of several books, are by Amelie Romily and Thomas Bock (see Figure 21 and Figure 22). Portraits such as these made in the nineteenth century present Lady Jane with soft curls, large eyes, prominent cheekbones and small but full lips. She appears feminine and refined.
78 Figure 2 1 : Amelie Romil y,
Lady Jane Franklin, 1816
Figure 2 2 : T homas B ock,
Lady Jane Franklin, c.1840
Lendis does not preserve any element of likeness to Lady Jane; he stylises her face, reddens her hair and erases any possibility of recognition through facial features. He also at times creates proxy portraits of Lady Jane, depicting her in the guise of English heroines, a strategy which will be explored in a later section of this chapter. Lendis is personally and aesthetically driven to paint Lady Jane. He visually revives Lady Jane in his own way rather than through imitation of previous portraits. His portrayals of Lady Jane thus complement the criteria of imagined portraits described in Chapter One.
Concentrating on the medium of paint, Lendis explores what the material itself can express. In some works he combines the high gloss, multi- layered varnished finish of Renaissance paintings with the raw thick texture of oil paint dabbed on in thick splodges. He experiments with waxes, paint thinners, varnishes, and incorporating pieces of cloth into his paintings to combine traditional painting techniques, European aesthetics and a modern
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vision. In a similar vein to Nolan who strived for an emotional connection with viewers, Lendis aims to connect with the viewer on a “purely emotional level” through the expressive use of paint (Lendis 2006, p. 6).
Lendis’s main interest in Lady Jane is in her travels through Tasmania. Lady Jane was an avid explorer. Her travels have largely been overshadowed by her dedicated search for her husband as this behaviour better conformed to Victorian norms for women. When Lendis travels around Tasmania, he envisages Lady Jane, the seemingly unlikely Victorian, female adventurer. He portrays Lady Jane as a woman who boldly ventured where other women of her class feared to tread. In his imagined portraits, Lady Jane is not remembered solely in relation to Mathinna or Sir John Franklin; she is most frequently a lone figure in the land.