Fanny Jane Marlay (1819–1848) came to Sydney with her free-settler family around 1825. In 1838, she met John Lort Stokes (1812–1885), an explorer, naval officer and surveyor appointed to HMS Beagle, which was then engaged in a surveying voyage of the Australian coast. In the course of it, Stokes charted much of what is now the coast of the Northern Territory; gave Darwin its name (after his former shipmate, Charles Darwin); and surveyed the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Arafura Sea, the Torres Strait, the Western Australian coast, and Bass Strait. He and Fanny married in Sydney in January 1841. Later the same year, Stoke succeeded to the command of the Beagle. Their daughter was born in 1842. Fanny returned with Stokes to England in 1843 and died while en route to Sydney again in 1848. Back in England from 1851, Stokes was eventually promoted to admiral. He died at his home, Scotchwell, in Pembrokeshire, in June 1885, survived by his second wife, Louisa, whom he’d married in 1856, and by his daughter from his marriage to Fanny.
Purchased 2013
A portrait of free-settler Fanny Jane Marlay by an unknown artist in 1841. Watercolour on ivory positioned in a mountboard cut into a stretched octagon shape and coloured a deep mustard yellow. Encased in a velvet-lined burgundy case with a clasp on the right side it measures 7.5 cm in height and 6.3 cm wide.
Fanny Jane fills the frame. Her pearly white skin contrasts with the blue of her garment and the dark brown background which enhances the creaminess of her complexion. The brush marks of the artist are evident with hatching and stippling of colours being used to create gradations in colour.
She wears a sapphire blue broad brim hat which creates a halo around her face. The hat is elaborately decorated in white feathers that spill over the hat, drooping down towards her face and left shoulder.
Her hair is styled in loose finger waves covering her forehead and ears and pulled back. Elegant gold earrings with peach-coloured stones dangle from beneath her hair. Her eyebrows are slightly arched over almond-shaped and heavy-lidded eyes which are the same blue as her hat. Her nose is strong and straight, her cheeks coloured with a peachy blush and her narrow lips curve up in a subtle smile. Her long neck is adorned with a thick coiled gold necklace decorated with a peach-coloured stone in the centre to match her earrings.
She wears a blue dress that complements her hat with a broad neckline that is edged in delicate translucent lace. The lace stands up, reaching towards her face, shorter at the front and becoming taller at the back with a triangular trimmed edge. This triangular edging is mirrored in the blue fabric of her dress, where the neckline is also trimmed in a row of blue triangles.
Audio description written and voiced by Alana Sivell, 2021
Fanny Jane Marlay (age 22 in 1841)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.
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