Who Was James Collinson?

James Collinson (1825–1881) was the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's quiet religious painter. He was one of the seven founding members, briefly engaged to Christina Rossetti, the most devoutly Catholic of the founding circle, and the only Brother whose devotion eventually pulled him out of the Brotherhood in 1850 to enter Roman Catholic seminary training. He left painting almost entirely behind for nearly a decade and returned in the late 1850s as the painter of small-scale Victorian narrative scenes that the Brotherhood had originally been founded to overthrow.

According to the Tate's biographical entry on James Collinson, his Brotherhood membership was bracketed by exact dates: "James Collinson (9 May 1825 – 1881) was a Victorian painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850."

The basics

• Born: 9 May 1825, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
• Died: 24 January 1881, Camberwell, London
• Profession: painter
• Best known for: founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848–50); engagement to Christina Rossetti; The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary (1850), To Let (1857), For Sale (1857)
• Religious affiliation: Roman Catholic, briefly trained as Jesuit, returned to lay life in 1854

Royal Academy training and the founding of the Brotherhood

Collinson trained at the Royal Academy Schools in the late 1840s alongside Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti, and was admitted to the founding Brotherhood in the autumn of 1848 by Rossetti's invitation. Britannica's entry on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood records the founding generation: "The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848 by three Royal Academy students: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a gifted poet as well as a painter, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais, all under 25 years of age."

Britannica continues with the four members brought in by invitation: "The painter James Collinson, the painter and critic F.G. Stephens, the sculptor Thomas Woolner, and the critic William Michael Rossetti (Dante Gabriel's brother) joined them by invitation." Collinson was the only one of the seven Brothers whose primary commitment when he joined was already religious painting in a Catholic mode, and that commitment was the central tension of his short Brotherhood membership.

The 1850 engagement to Christina Rossetti

The Tate notes the most personal of Collinson's connections to the Brotherhood: "Engaged at one time to Christina Rossetti, their broken engagement also influenced many of her poems." Collinson and Christina Rossetti became engaged in 1848, the same year he joined the Brotherhood, but the engagement was conditional on Collinson's religious affiliation: he had already converted to Roman Catholicism and Christina was a devout High Anglican.

The conditions kept changing. Collinson briefly returned to the Church of England to allow the engagement, then re-converted to Catholicism in 1850, at which point Christina ended the engagement. Several of her major poems (L.E.L., The Convent Threshold, fragments of the later Goblin Market) draw on the imagery of refusal and renunciation that the broken engagement produced. Christina never married, and the Collinson engagement is the most-studied romantic episode of her life.

The Pre-Raphaelite literary vocabulary Collinson worked in

The Tate's art-term entry on Pre-Raphaelite defines the subject matter the Brotherhood specialised in: "Their principal themes were initially religious, but they also used subjects from literature and poetry, particularly those dealing with love and death." Collinson is the founding Brother whose work most directly fits the first half of that definition. His major Brotherhood-period painting, The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary (1850), is a large religious narrative of the Hungarian princess giving up her crown to enter a Franciscan convent, and it is the most explicitly devotional Pre-Raphaelite painting of the founding generation.

Resignation from the Brotherhood, 1850

The Brotherhood's project depended on a shared commitment to the visible reform of British painting through truth-to-nature, religious sincerity, and rejection of Royal Academy convention. Collinson concluded by 1850 that the Brotherhood's broader Romantic and pagan-literary interests (Keats, Tennyson, Boccaccio, classical mythology) were incompatible with his Catholic faith, and he resigned that year. The Tate's record of his work is correspondingly brief: he is identified with The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary, To Let, and For Sale, but the catalogue beyond those three works is small.

From 1851 to 1854 Collinson trained at the Jesuit novitiate at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, intending to become a Catholic priest. He left the Jesuits in 1854 without taking final vows, returned to lay life, and resumed painting. The decade-long retreat from professional artistic activity is the longest interruption in any of the original Brotherhood members' careers.

The late career: To Let, For Sale, marriage

Collinson's mature output is small in scale and conventionally Victorian rather than Pre-Raphaelite. To Let (1857) and For Sale (1857) are his most-reproduced works of the late career: small-format genre paintings of women in interiors, the title in each case a double-entendre about the woman's availability and the property she stands beside. They were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857 and were Collinson's only critical successes after his Brotherhood resignation.

Collinson married Eliza Wheeler in 1858 (her brother-in-law was the painter John Rogers Herbert, an early Catholic-revival influence on Hunt and Rossetti), and the marriage produced two sons. The family lived in London and, later, in Brittany, where Collinson painted The Holy Family (1878) and resumed the religious subjects of his Brotherhood years. He died in Camberwell in 1881.

What James Collinson left behind

Collinson is the founding Brother whose work has aged least well. Of the seven original Brotherhood members, he is the one whose paintings are now least often reproduced, least often exhibited, and least often discussed. The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary, To Let, and For Sale are in regional and national collections (Tate Britain, Nottingham Museums, the Manchester City Art Gallery), but the body of work is small and the late career is genuinely minor by comparison with the other Brotherhood founders.

His significance now is mostly historical: he was one of the seven who agreed in 1848 to overturn Royal Academy convention, and his religious devotion is what made the Brotherhood's negotiation between sincerity, modern realism, and pagan literary subject matter visible from the inside. Browse the full archive of Pre-Raphaelite-influenced patterns at William Morris Wallpaper.

FAQ

Was James Collinson a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood?

Yes. He was one of the seven founders in 1848, alongside Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Michael Rossetti, Thomas Woolner, and Frederic George Stephens. He resigned from the Brotherhood in 1850 over what he saw as a conflict between the group's literary subjects (Keats, Tennyson, classical mythology) and his Roman Catholic faith. The 1848–50 period is the only time he was formally a Brotherhood member.

Why did Collinson leave the Brotherhood?

His Roman Catholicism. He had converted to Catholicism in the late 1840s, and by 1850 he believed the Brotherhood's pagan and literary subject matter was incompatible with his faith. He resigned that year and from 1851 to 1854 trained for the Catholic priesthood with the Jesuits at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. He left the seminary in 1854 without taking final vows, returned to lay life, and resumed painting in a smaller, more conventional Victorian mode.

Was Collinson really engaged to Christina Rossetti?

Yes. They became engaged in 1848 and the engagement broke off in 1850, when Collinson re-converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. The episode is one of the most-discussed romantic episodes in Christina Rossetti's biography, and her major poems of the early 1850s (including The Convent Threshold) draw imagery from the broken engagement. Christina never married.

What were Collinson's most famous paintings?

The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary (1850), painted during his Brotherhood years, is his largest and most religiously serious painting. To Let (1857) and For Sale (1857), the two genre paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857, are his most reproduced post-Brotherhood works. The Holy Family (1878), painted in Brittany, is the major work of his late career.