A friend recently bought an early-19th C miniature portrait that shows a woman writing a letter. It struck me that her pen-holding hand rested only on her little finger, something my fifth-grade teacher insisted on. (Ever since, I have enjoyed defying that teacher by resting the whole side of my hand against the surface.) For fun I looked for other images of Regency ladies writing and found this one, which shows something closer to the way I hold a pencil on paper. Not sure how my childhood experience or a detail in a painting could be used in fiction, but odd things make connections hop out in the imagination.
For the entire portrait by Pajou, click here.
Picturing a World
Pen in hand
July 10, 2023
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