Lot Essay
A drawing of considerable academic interest. Both Collinson and
F.G. Stephens were among the original seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848. Collinson is perhaps chiefly remembered for having been briefly engaged to Christina Rossetti and for his on-and-off flirtation with Roman Catholicism, which caused him to resign from the P.R.B. in 1850. His most important Pre-Raphaelite work is The Renunciation of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary (1851; Johannesburg Art Gallery), but his paintings are rare and his drawings still rarer, for an account of his career, see Ronald Parkinson's article in Leslie Parris (ed.) Pre-Raphaelite Papers, 1984. F.G. Stephens abandoned painting for writing in the early 1850s, and for forty years was art critic of the Athenaeum.
The present drawing must have been made and given to Stephens about the time the P.R.B. was founded, and certainly before Collinson's resignation. There was quite a lot of exchanging of drawings between the Brothers at this date; compare Millais' well-known drawing of Two Lovers by a Rose-Bush (1848; Birmingham), inscribed 'John E. Millais to his P.R.B. Brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti', or Holman Hunt's One Step to the Death-Bed (private collection; Hunt exh., 1969, no. 100, repr. in cat.) which dates from the same year and was also given to Rossetti.
F.G. Stephens were among the original seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848. Collinson is perhaps chiefly remembered for having been briefly engaged to Christina Rossetti and for his on-and-off flirtation with Roman Catholicism, which caused him to resign from the P.R.B. in 1850. His most important Pre-Raphaelite work is The Renunciation of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary (1851; Johannesburg Art Gallery), but his paintings are rare and his drawings still rarer, for an account of his career, see Ronald Parkinson's article in Leslie Parris (ed.) Pre-Raphaelite Papers, 1984. F.G. Stephens abandoned painting for writing in the early 1850s, and for forty years was art critic of the Athenaeum.
The present drawing must have been made and given to Stephens about the time the P.R.B. was founded, and certainly before Collinson's resignation. There was quite a lot of exchanging of drawings between the Brothers at this date; compare Millais' well-known drawing of Two Lovers by a Rose-Bush (1848; Birmingham), inscribed 'John E. Millais to his P.R.B. Brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti', or Holman Hunt's One Step to the Death-Bed (private collection; Hunt exh., 1969, no. 100, repr. in cat.) which dates from the same year and was also given to Rossetti.