Convent Thoughts by Charles Collins

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Convent Thoughts

Charles Allston Collins

1851

Oil on canvas

Arched top, 33 1/8 x 23 1/4 inches

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Compare Collin's study for the head

According to Christopher Wood, "Collins's picture is typical of the early, gothic phase of the movement, and the religious piety of these works led many critics to accuse the painters of being Roman Catholic sympathizers. The mood of this picture is generally similar to Rossetti's early works, but the flowers and garden reflect Millais's influence" (22).

Peter Nahum explains that "Frances Farah Ludlow was the beautiful model for the nun who is so delicately portrayed in this drawing. The competition for stunning models was revealed by Millais in a letter to Mrs Combe Collins on 15th January, 1851: "I saw Carlo last night, who has been very lucky in persuading a very beautiful young lady to sit for the head of the nun. She was at his house when I called, and I also endeavored to obtain a seating, but was unfortunate as she leaves London next Saturday" (cited Faberman, p. 66). About the same time Collins wrote to Holman Hunt mentioning that he had been working on the nun's face from 'a friend of a friend' at her own house. Collins had borrowed the same nun's costume that Holman Hunt had used in Claudio and Isabella. Preparatory studies for Convent Thoughts are in the Ashmolean and the British Museum. A later version in pen and ink, dated 1853, is in Tate Britain."

Related Material

On Process and Persistence: Visions of Time in Pre-Raphaelite and Decadent Works

Bibliography

Faberman, Hilarie. The Substance or the Shadow; Images of Victorian Womanhood. Exhibition catalogue. London: Yale Center for British Art, 1982.

Wood, Christopher. The Pre-Raphaelites. New York: Studio Press, 1981.

Last modified 26 June 2020