Cassandra Elizabeth Austen (9 January 1773 – 22 March 1845) was an amateur English watercolourist and the elder sister of Jane Austen. The letters between her and Jane form a substantial foundation to scholarly understanding of the life of the novelist. Childhood Austen was born in 1773 at a rectory in Steventon, Hampshire, to The Reverend George Austen (1731–1805), a rector, and his wife Cassandra, née Leigh (1739–1827). There were eight Austen children; as Cassandra and Jane were the only girls, they maintained an especially close relationship throughout their lives. Over one hundred letters addressed to Cassandra from Jane have survived. These letters have helped historians to construct details about the life of the novelist. The sisters went to Mrs. Cawley, their uncle's sister, to be educated in 1783. Cawley lived initially in Oxford, and later in Southampton, and, when an epidemic broke out in Southampton, the Austen sisters returned to Steventon. Between 1785 and 1786 the sisters attended the Reading Abbey Girls' School. Jane was originally not to go, as she was considered to be too young for boarding school, but ended up attending along with her sister. In their mother's words, "if Cassandra's head had been going to be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too". Art The two Austen girls were also tutored at home in drawing and the piano. In 1791, Cassandra produced a series of circular illustrations of British monarchs for Jane's manuscript The History of England, which are noted to have resembled members of the Austen family more than royalty. Cassandra Austen is also credited with having created two paintings of her sister. One, painted in 1804, is a back view of Jane seated by a tree. The other, an incomplete frontal portrait dated circa 1810, was described by a family member as being "hideously unlike" Jane Austen's real appearance. This sketch is now housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Later life George Austen was not wealthy and had supplemented his income as a country parson "by taking in pupils and tutoring them for Oxford". After graduating from Oxford University, in 1794, one former pupil, Thomas Fowle, became engaged to Cassandra Austen. Fowle needed money to marry and went to the Caribbean with a military expedition as chaplain to his cousin, General Lord Craven. There, Fowle died of yellow fever in 1797. Austen inherited £1000 from him, which gave her a