Watercolor illustration of a woman dressed in classical Greek robes and sandals and leaning against a waist-high pillar, on top of which she positions a lyre

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
Untitled watercolor of woman in Greek dress
Pencil and watercolor on paper
1830
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature

Untitled watercolor of woman in Greek dress

Six months after she finished “Ernest Alembert” (shown below), Charlotte Brontë painted this figure in colorful Grecian clothing. Like her most famous heroine, Jane Eyre, Brontë’s painterly ability is no better than average. And yet we see here her ambition embodied: the woman holds a lyre in one hand, the instrument of Apollo, Greek god of the sun and patron of all the arts. In the other she holds a plectrum with which to pluck the strings. With this portrayal, Brontë expressed her determination to be an artist, a claim she fulfilled brilliantly with her novels Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), and Villette (1853).

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