The Holy Family, by James Collinson (1825-1881). 1878. Oil on canvas. 43 ½ x 33 ½ inches (110.5 x 85.1 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Christie's, shown here by kind permission (right click disabled; not to be reproduced).
The Holy Family was painted when Collinson was living in Brittany and the town seen in the background might possibly be based on St. Malo. John Christian noted its obvious Pre-Raphaelite influences when the work sold at Christie's in 2003:
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 back of the Nile. The foreground, however, is scattered with plants more often found in an English country garden: hollyhocks, foxgloves and dandelions can 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 1878, surely betrays Collinson's sympathy with the Pre-Raphaelite movement started thirty years previously. [208]
This attention to detail differs markedly from Collinson's other paintings of this period which are contemporary genre scenes. The influence of early Italian Renaissance painting can also be seen in the treatment of the figures. Mary is dressed in her traditional blue, although the upper part of her dress is covered with a rusty red overmantel. A white shawl covers her head, symbolic of her purity. She holds the child Jesus who stands on her lap reaching out to a white dove resting on Joseph's finger, symbolic of the Holy Spirit. Plain round halos are seen over the heads of Mary and Joseph while Jesus has a solid halo of gold in the coronal plane. Typological symbolism can also be seen in the ladder behind Joseph to his right, which is symbolic of the crucifixion. Similar typological symbols to foreshadow the crucifixion can be seen in earlier Pre-Raphaelite works such as J. E. Millais' Christ in the House of his Parents, W. Holman Hunt's The Shadow of Death and J. R. S. Stanhope's The Wine Press.
It is surprising that there are not more religious paintings in Collinson's oeuvre because he was an intensely religious man. He had reconverted to Roman Catholicism in 1850, the same year he contributed a poem The Child Jesus - A record typical of the Five Sorrowful Mysteries and an accompanying etching to the second issue of the Pre-Raphaelite magazine The Germ. In 1851 he exhibited his most famous Pre-Raphaelite painting on a religious theme, An Incident in the Life of St Elizabeth of Hungary, at the National Institution of Fine Arts at the Portland Gallery. On January 15, 1853 he entered Hodder Place near Stonyhurst, the Jesuit College in Lancashire, as a novitiate to train for the priesthood but left without completing his two years of training and resumed his painting career. His exhibited paintings from this point on are mostly all standard Victorian genre pieces. In the late 1860s, however, he exhibited a series of works showing the activities of Catholic nuns, beginning with A Sister of Nazareth and a Blind Woman that he exhibited in 1867 at the Society of British Artists. In 1869 he showed Sisters of Charity teaching Blind Girls to Sing at the Royal Academy. Both of these works belonged to the Sisters of Charity, whose convent in London was in Manchester Square in Marylebone. In 1868 at the Society of British Artists, nos. 541 and 542, he showed two scenes painted at the first home for the elderly founded by the Little Sisters of the Poor at 296a Portobello Road. These two works were painted to show his admiration for this Order and collectively were entitled Interior of St. Joseph's Home for aged and infirm poor, Bayswater (Les Petites Soeurs des Pauvres). One painting showed the old ladies while the other the old gentlemen.
The Holy Family was never exhibited and Collinson may have painted it as a present for his only son Robert, then aged nineteen, when he entered a Catholic seminary in Rennes to train for the priesthood. Robert Collinson bequeathed the painting to the Sisters of Mercy in Manchester Square.
Bibliography
The British Sale: Part Two. London: Sotheby's (June 15, 2000): lot 420. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2000/the-british-sale-part-two-l00728/lot.420.html
Christian, John: The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art. London: Christie's (February 20, 2003): lot 296, 208-09. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4051974
Cox, Valerie A. "The Works of James Collinson: 1825-1881." The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society IV, no. 3, (1996): 12.
Newman, Helen D. James Collinson (aka "The Dormouse"). Foulsham: Reuben Books, 2016, 148-53 & 157-58.
Created 8 March 2024