James Collinson Sold at Auction Prices

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) A penny short

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) A penny short signed and dated 'J Collinson/1858' (lower left); inscribed with artist's name and address (on a label attached to the reverse) oil on canvas 61 x 46cm (24 x 18 1/8in). ~For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) A penny short

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) A penny short signed and dated 'J Collinson/1858' (lower left); inscribed with artist's name and address (on a label attached to the reverse) oil on canvas 61 x 46cm (24 x 18 1/8in).

James Collinson - Odd or Even

Lot 246 James Collinson British (1825-1881) Odd or Even oil on canvas signed lower right 15 x 18 1/8 inches frame dimensions: 20 5/8 x 23 5/8 x 2 inches, wood frame Provenance: Property from the Collection of Seymour Stein Sotheby's, London, Victorian Pictures, 02 November 1994, lot 168

JAMES COLLINSON - ODD OR EVEN

Lot 52 James Collinson British (1825-1881) Odd or Even oil on canvas signed lower right 15 x 18 1/8 inches Provenance: Property from the Collection of Seymour Stein Offered in Sotheby's sale 'Victorian Pictures,' 02 November 1994, lot 168

JAMES COLLINSON (BRITISH, 1825-1881) - To Let

JAMES COLLINSON (BRITISH, 1825-1881) To Let oil on canvas , painted oval 241⁄4 x 181⁄2 in. (51.5 x 47 cm.)

JAMES COLLINSON (BRITISH, 1825-1881) - Study for 'For Sale'

JAMES COLLINSON (BRITISH, 1825-1881) Study for 'For Sale' signed 'James Collinson' (lower right) oil on canvas , painted oval12 x 93⁄4 in. (30.5 x 23.8 cm.)

James Collinson (Mansfield 1825-1881 London) Going to Service

James Collinson (Mansfield 1825-1881 London) Going to Service signed , inscribed and numbered 'Going to Service J Collinson No3' (on the stretcher) oil on canvas 10 x 12 in. (25.4 x 30.5 cm.)

James Collinson (1825-1881) Going to Service oil on canvas 10 x 12 in. (25.4 x 30.5 cm.)

James Collinson (1825-1881) Going to Service signed, inscribed and numbered 'Going to Service J Collinson No3' (on the stretcher) oil on canvas 10 x 12 in. (25.4 x 30.5 cm.)

JAMES COLLINSON 1825-1881 For Sale (1857) oil on canvas 36.6 x 31.5 cm

JAMES COLLINSON 1825-1881 For Sale (1857) oil on canvas signed 'James Collinson' lower right 36.6 x 31.5 cm PROVENANCE Private Collection Christie's, London, 13 October 1978, lot 88, 'The Empty Purse' illustrated Private Collection, acquired from the above Sotheby's, London, 18 June 1985, lot 19, illustrated Private Collection, acquired from the above Victorian Pictures including Works by Burne-Jones and His Circle, Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1998, lot 171, 'The Bazaar', illustrated Forbes Magazine Collection, New York, acquired from the above The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art, Christie's, London, 20 February 2003, lot 98, illustrated Mr John Schaeffer AO, Sydney, acquired from the above EXHIBITED The Defining Moment: Victorian Narrative Painting from the Forbes Magazine Collection, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 15 January - 2 April 2000; Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennesee, 12 May - 6 August 2000; Delaware Art Museum, Willmington, 7 September 2000 - 7 January 2001; Tampa Art Museum, Florida, 27 January - 22 April 2001; Forbes Magazine Galleries, New York, 2 May - 30 June 2001; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth, 28 July - 11 November 2001, no. 9 Masterworks of Victorian Art from the Collection of John H. Schaeffer, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah, 15 February - 16 August 2008 The John H. Schaeffer Collection of Victorian and European Art, Springvillee Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 26 August 2009 - 28 February 2010 Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 May - 29 August 2010, no. 5, illustrated LITERATURE Ronald Parkinson, 'James Collinson', in Leslie Parris (ed.), Pre-Raphaelite Papers, Tate Gallery, London, 1984, p. 74 Richard Beresford, Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, pp. 38, 39 (illustrated)

James Collinson (1825 - 1881), watercolour study -

James Collinson (1825 - 1881), watercolour study - interior scene with cavaliers and monks - The Tipplers, signed, in glazed gilt frame, 38cm x 58cm

James Collinson (1825 - 1881) watercolour study -

James Collinson (1825 - 1881) watercolour study - interior scene with cavaliers and monks - 'The Tipplers', signed, in glazed gilt frame, 38cm x 58cm

James Collinson (1825 - 1881) watercolour study -

James Collinson (1825 - 1881) watercolour study - interior scene with cavaliers and monks - 'The Tipplers', signed, in glazed gilt frame, 38cm x 58cm

JAMES COLLINSON, England 1825 -1881

JAMES COLLINSON, England 1825 -1881

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) 'Private and Confidential' 44 x 35.5cm. (in an oval mount)

'Private and Confidential' Titled on mount Oil on canvas 44 x 35.5cm. (in an oval mount)

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl with a beached vessel on a canal side; watercolour, signed and dated 1894, 29x58.5cm: After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary"; watercolour, arched, 26.8x40.8cm: George Richmond RA 1809-1896- Portrait of young lady, head and shoulders turned to the left; black and coloured chalk heightened with white chalk on buff brown paper, signed with initials and dated 1851, 60x47.5cm., (unframed) (3)

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl with a beached vessel on a canal side; watercolour, signed and dated 1894, 29x58.5cm: After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary"; watercolour, arched, 26.8x40.8cm: George Richmond RA 1809-1896- Portrait of young lady, head and shoulders turned to the left; black and coloured chalk heightened with white chalk on buff brown paper, signed with initials and dated 1851, 60x47.5cm., (unframed) (3)

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl with a beached vessel on a canal side; watercolour, signed and dated 1894, 29x58.5cm: After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary"; watercolour, arched, 26.8x40.8cm, (unframed) (2)

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl

Carleton Grant RBA c.1860-1930 exh 1885-1899- Girl with a beached vessel on a canal side; watercolour, signed and dated 1894, 29x58.5cm: After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary"; watercolour, arched, 26.8x40.8cm, (unframed) (2)

After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation

After James Collinson 1825-1881- "The Renunciation of St Elizabeth of Hungary"; watercolour, arched, 26.8x40.8cm., (unframed)

JAMES COLLINSON, OIL ON CANVAS, 24" X 20, "THE

JAMES COLLINSON, OIL ON CANVAS, 24" X 20, "THE SISTERS": BRITISH 1825-1881: Victorian painter; signed lower left; gilt frame.

JAMES COLLINSON

SHORT CHANGE signed and dated l.l.: J. Collinson/ 1858

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) Mother and child

Mother and child signed 'J Collinson' (lower right), oil on canvas 25.5 x 20.5cm (10 1/16 x 8 1/16in).

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) Mother and child

Mother and child signed 'J Collinson' (lower right), oil on canvas 25.5 x 20.5cm (10 1/16 x 8 1/16in).

James B. Collinson (British, 1825-1881), group of

James B. Collinson (British, 1825-1881), group of six pencil drawings on paper: "Acapulco", "Californians - Vertical", "Californians - Horizontal", "Steamboat", "Eclipse", and "Turtles", ca. 1850, all examples are titled in pencil and retain gallery label en verso "Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York", sheet sizes are 9-1/2" x 6". Matted and unframed.

James Collinson RBA 1825-1881- "A Breton Girl with

James Collinson RBA 1825-1881- "A Breton Girl with Rabbits"; oil on canvas, bears inscribed labels attached to the reverse, 51x35.8cm. Provenance: Exhibited Belfast Art and Industry Exhibition, according to label attached to the reverse

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) Mother and child

Mother and child signed 'J Collinson' (lower right) oil on canvas 25.5 x 20.5cm (10 1/16 x 8 1/16in).

James Collinson , 1825-1881 the writing lesson oil on panel

signed and dated l.l.: J Collinson/1855 oil on panel

James Collinson , British 1825-1881 A Breton Girl with Rabbits oil on canvas

oil on canvas

JAMES COLLINSON

SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS) signed J. Collinson and dated 1855 (on trunk, lower left); also inscribed on a label attached to the reverse: No. 2/ Bleeding a Freshman/ Price 88gs./ 11 Queen's Road West/ Chelsea

James Collinson (1825-1881)

Study for 'For Sale' signed 'James Collinson' (lower right) oil on canvas 11 7/8 x 10 in. (30.2 x 25.4 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 13 October 1978, lot 88, as 'The Empty Purse'. Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 18 June 1985, lot 19, as 'For Sale'. Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1998, lot 171, when acquired by the present owner. EXHIBITION The Defining Moment, 2000-1, no. 9. NOTES Another version of this composition can be seen at Tate Britain, entitled The Empty Purse, while the version shown at the Royal Academy of 1857 and which was included in Great Victorian Pictures (Arts Council, 1978, no. 5) is now in the Castle Museum, Nottingham. A further version, entitled At the Bazaar is in the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield. The picture was among Collinson's most popular compositions, and was widely reproduced in his lifetime through engraving. As with To Let, the previous lot, the oval compostion depicts a lady, three quarter length, whose gaze directly confronts the viewer. To contemporary eyes however, the messages contained within the picture appear ambiguous. The bill to the woman's right advertises a church bazaar whose patroness is the Right Honourable Lady Dorcas. In the New Testament, Dorcas, a Christian exemplar, provided charity and clothing for the poor. Charity bazaars were a much enjoyed pastime amongst the Victorian middle class, whose female members were otherwise barred from commercial activity. The plethora of goods on offer, gaudy and inessential, also attest to an envigorated appetite for shopping. But what are we to make of the pictures various titles - For Sale and The Empty Purse ? Does the empty purse signify, as feminist art-historians would have it, the sitter's lack of financial independence, and are we to regard the sitter herself as an item for sale, in a society where marriage was often regarded as a contractual arrangement, undertaken for reasons of finance rather than for love? The keen eyed viewer might have spotted a religious print of Christ bearing the cross inscribed 'follow me', perhaps an injunction to the viewer to leave worldly considerations behind, and follow a virtuous path. Collinson does not appear to have recorded his reminiscences in which to explain the picture.

James Collinson (1825-1881)

To Let oil on canvas, painted oval 241/4 x 181/2 in. (51.5 x 47 cm.) PROVENANCE Professor Thomas Bodkin; Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1959, lot 98. with The Fine Art Society, London, from whom acquired by the present owner in 1971. LITERATURE Art Journal, 1857, p. 167. T. Bodkin, 'James Collinson', Apollo, May 1940, pp. 130, 132-133, illus. p. 130, pl. III. W. E. Fredeman, Pre-Raphaelitism: A Biblio-critical Study, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965, p. 132. M. A. Findlay, 'Forbes Saves the Queen', Arts Magazine, February 1973, illus. p. 29. P. Byrde, Nineteenth Century Fashion, London, 1992, p. 55, pl. 36. EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1857, no. 102. Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, 1919. Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 1920. Birmingham, City Museum of Art Gallery, Victorian Exhibition, 1937, no. 98. London, Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Victorian Life, 1937, no. 98. Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1947, no. 17. Port Sunlight, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition, 1948, no. 99. Bournemouth, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by the Pre-Raphaelites and their Followers, June-August 1951, no. 24. Arts Council, Wales, Some Pre-Raphaelite Paintings and Drawings, 1955, no. 21. Nottingham, University Art Gallery, Victorian Painting, 1959, no. 12. Sheffield, Mappin Art Gallery, Victorian Paintings, 1968, no. 35. London, Charles Keyser Gallery, Victorian Paintings, 1971. Victorian Art, 1972, no. 66. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974-5, no. L. 1974.62. The Royal Academy (1837-1901) Revisited, 1975-6, no. 6. The Pre-Raphaelite Era, 1976, no. 2-2. 32 Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 1981. The Pre-Raphaelites and their Times, 1985, no. 11. The Art of Seeing: John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye, 1993, cat. pl. 41. The Defining Moment, 2000-1, no. 8. NOTES Collinson was one of the seven founder members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and this is perhaps his best known picture. Though dextrous and with a brilliant finish it shows little intellectual Pre-Raphaelite purpose however, and presents instead as an exemplary, if ambiguous, piece of Victorian domestic genre, much in the manner of William Powell Frith. A married lady draws a Venetian blind to reveal a sign in the window offering furnished appartments 'To Let'. However, the relationship of the title to the contents of the painting is not immediately obvious, and as the Art Journal commented, 'the point of the title is not very clear'. The picture has always been open to diverse interpretation. When lent to an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries eighty years after it was painted, along with its pendant For Sale, a smaller version of which is offered as the following lot in this sale, the critic of the Times observed: 'There are hints... in the pair of pictures For Sale and To Let by James Collinson... that some Victorian artists had pretty shrewd notions about comparative iniquity'. Would a Victorian audience, alert to the 'language of flowers' and the pots containing a lily and a 'Bleeding Heart', have interpreted the subject as a variation of Mr Pickwick's amorous landlady, Mrs Bardell, as popularized by Dickens? The extent to which Collinson was attempting a double-entendre, or any moral purpose, is unclear. Born in Mansfield, the son of a bookseller, Collinson entered the Royal Academy Schools and exhibited there for the first time in 1847. The attention to detail in The Charity Boy's Debut, so impressed Rossetti that he pronounced Collinson 'a born stunner' and invited him to join the Brotherhood. Collinson later became engaged to Rossetti's poet sister Christina, but she broke it off prior to his return to the Catholic faith, and his entry to Stoneyhurst in 1850. Having been nicknamed 'the doormouse' by fellow members of the P.R.B., and teased by Hunt for needing 'to be waked up at the conclusion of the noisy evenings to receive our salutations', Collinson resigned his membership on the grounds that he could not 'as a Catholic, assist in spreading the artistic opinions of those who were not'. Collinson failed to complete his novitiate, and left the monastery and resumed painting in 1854. He later married the sister-in-law of another Catholic convert, John Rogers Herbert (see lot 133). Between 1847 and 1870 he exhibited seventeen paintings at the Royal Academy and also contributed to the Society of British Artists where he was secretary from 1861 to 1870, and the British Institution. Though principally resident in London, he made frequent visits to Brittany where his son Robert was a seminarian, and it was there that he executed a painting of The Holy Family (see lot 296 in the present sale). Well known through engravings, a smaller version of this picture exists in the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield. A smaller version of its pendant, For Sale is offered as the following lot.

Henry Charles Bryant (fl. 1860-1880), after James Collinson (1825-1881)

Leaving Home signed 'H.C. BRYANT' (lower left) oil on canvas 12 x 14 in. (30.5 x 35.6 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Christie's South Kensington, 22 April 1999, when acquired by the present owner. NOTES Though we have no reason to doubt the signature of Henry Charles Bryant, this picture would appear to be a direct copy after a work by James Collinson, possibly that exhibited at the British Institution of 1858, no. 566, under the title 'Leaving Home'. Collinson's picture, currently in a distinguished private collection, was included in the The Pre-Raphaelites, Tate Gallery, 1984, no. 93. It is one of a number of Victorian depictions on the subject of farewell. In this instance a country girl is leaving for town, probably impelled by economic duress. Although best known for his skillful depictions of market scenes which now appear frequently at auction, Bryant was also an accomplished painter of genre who exhibited frequently at the Royal Society of British Artists, and also, occasionally at the the Royal Academy and the British Institution. Collinson was a founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, and was briefly engaged to Christina Rossetti. A full account of his life can be found in the entry for lots 97 and 296..

Erskine Nicol, R.S.A., A.R.A. (1825-1904)

The Valentine signed and dated 'ENicol/1874' (lower right) oil on canvas 30 x 21 in. (76.2 x 53.3 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. sale, Sotheby's at Slane Castle, Ireland, 12 May 1980, lot 426, when acquired by the present owner. EXHIBITION 32 Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 1981. Childhood in Victorian England, 1985, no. 26. Victorian Childhood, 1986, cat. pl. 21. NOTES Several of Nicol's paintings revolve around the arrival or reading of a letter or newspaper. Typically the cottager shown is grimacing or smiling as he or she struggles to read, sign a document or compose a letter. Other artists used the device of a letter to tell a story, Charles W. Cope's Palpitation of 1844 alludes to romance and the transmission of news abroad is the subject of James Collinson's Answering the Emigrant's Letter . This preoccupation with sending or receiving missives can partly be explained by the reform of the postal system in 1840, when the penny post was established and made delivery both reliable and cheap. One result was that the valentine-making industry flourished in the 1840s and 1850s, as embossed, hand-punched, lace, folding, and other kinds of sentimental as well as comic valentines became immensely popular. In 1863, Nicol had painted a work of the same title, in which a pretty peasant woman in a humble interior leisurely reads a message from an assumed admirer. However, in the present work the young man appears to have received a letter and not a commercial card. It was generally more usual for men to send valentines than to receive them, and the young boy in ragged clothes and over-sized shoes is clearly overwhelmed by the contents of the letter and astonished at the sight of an image of a mule on the treasured 'valentine'. Outside a real mule or donkey stands in the doorway. In the tradition of seventeenth-century Dutch genre, there are various emblematic elements to the still life depicted on the table: the eggs allude to fertility and aphrodisiacs, the spilled milk and open jugs and jars imply that a deed has already been committed and meanwhile the dog causes disruption and disorder as he steals food from the table.

James Collinson (1825-1881)

The Holy Family with inscription 'This is to certify that this picture of the/Holy Family was painted by my father/the late James Collinson, one of the/original PreRaphaelite brothers and/later a member of the society of British/Artists who had a gallery in Suffolk Street./Robert V. Collinson.' (on an old label on the reverse) oil on canvas, painted arch 431/2 x 331/2 in. (110.5 x 85.1 cm.) PROVENANCE By descent to the artist's son Robert V. Collinson. Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 15 June 2000, lot 420, when acquired by the present owner. LITERATURE Valerie A. Cox, 'The Works of James Collinson: 1825-1881', The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society, vol. IV, no. 3, 1996, p. 12. NOTES James Collinson was one of the founder members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and was briefly engaged to Rossetti's sister, Christina, in 1849-50. He was also intensely religious, and abandoned painting for the Catholic seminary at Stoneyhurst in 1851. He left his novitiate in 1854 and resumed painting but never lost his religious fervour. The subject is conceived as the Return from the Flight into Egypt, a theme often treated by the Old Masters. Christ is no longer an infant and the Holy Family are being visited by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. An Egyptian temple can be glimpsed in the background, on the far bank of the Nile. The foreground however is scattered with plants more often found in an English country garden: hollyhocks, foxgloves and dandelions can be be seen on a lawn strewn with daisies while a sycamore, and a cedar of Lebanon are included, as well as a beehive to the left. These are painted with extraordinary care, and though the painting is executed in 1878, surely betrays Collinson's sympathy with the Pre-Raphaelite movement started thirty years previously. The painting hung for many years, along with others by Collinson, in the convent of the Sisters of Charity in Manchester Square, Marylebone.

JAMES COLLINSON (1825-1881)

Before the Start: A Bay Racehorse held by his groom signed 'J. Collinson' (lower right) oil on board 20 x 27 in. (50.8 x 68.6 cm.).

James Collinson (British, 1825-1881) The Laborer Signed and dated "Collinson 1856" l.l. Oil on canvas, 12 1/4 x 10 in. (30.8 x 25.5 cm), framed. Condition: Lined, minor scattered flaking/losses, craquelure.

James Collinson (1825-1881)

The Charity Boy's Debut signed and dated 'J. Collinson 1847' (lower left) oil on panel 22 3/4 x 29 3/4 in. (57.8 x 75.5 cm.) PROVENANCE David Solomon. with Richard Green, London. LITERATURE Athenaeum, 9 April 1881, p. 499. P.H. Bate, The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters, 1899, p. 53. H.C. M‚rillier, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1899, p. 19. W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905, p. 164. L. Cust, Dictionary of National Biography, 1908, vol. IV, p. 383. T. Bodkin, 'James Collinson', Apollo, May 1940, p. 128. C. Wood, Dictionary of British Art. Volume IV. Victorian Painters, vol. 1, London, 1978. p. 99. Valerie Cox, 'The Works of James Collinson: 1825-1881', The Review, vol. IV, no. 3, Autumn 1996, pp. 1, 8, & 13. EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1847, no. 187. NOTES This picture is of considerable interest as it so impressed Rossetti that he invited Collinson to join the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. In his reminiscences, Holman Hunt recalled the surprise of all, when Collinson, who as a student at the Royal Academy Schools had been overlooked by his peers, exhibited the picture at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1847. 'To represent the bashfulness of a poor boy appearing in the uniform of his parish was an honest idea, and although the invention did not go far beyond the initial conception, the pencilling was phenomenally painstaking throughout. It transpired that he had roused himself of late and entered the Roman Church, and had summoned effort to paint this picture. All the students blamed themselves for having ignored Collinson, but Rossetti went further, and declared that "Collinson was a born stunner", and at once struck up an intimate friendship with him. It will be seen that Rossetti had only wanted our enthusiasm to make him a great force in the battle. Accordingly we gave him permission to put the secret initials on his works, to attend our monthly meetings and to receive us in his turn.' (W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, op. cit. ) Collinson hence became one of the founder members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Between 1849-1850 he was briefly engaged to Christina Rossetti, but in 1851 he resigned from the Brotherhood and retired to a monastery. Although he returned to painting in 1854, he principally painted small subjects of a domestic and humorous character, leaving this picture to be considered one of his finest works.

James Collinson (British 1825-1881) In Trouble signed J. Collinson ll, oil on canvas 40.5 x 29.5cm (16 x 11 1/2 in)