Details
COLLINSON, JAMES. Autograph letter signed ("J. Collinson") to Frederic George Stephens, fellow member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Ventnor, Isle of Wright, n.d. [15 September 1849]. 2 pages, 8vo, both sides of the same sheet.
"I have just received your letter & am much obliged by your recommendation of a studio. There is however one objection to the rooms you mention,viz. that they are furnished. Mine are unfurnished. Moreover I have them on such moderate terms that I think I could scarcely better myself in that respect by a move. At present I am staying at Ventnor painting backgrounds -- when I return to [Lown?] I will take care to call at once upon you and see the rooms...I am oblivious of time & date but it is Saturday.
Of the seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, autograph letters of James Collinson (1825?-1881) are by far the rarest. "[His] reputation...has been the most short-lived of all the original Pre-Raphaelites. Today [1965], he is sometimes remembered as the painter of a few insignificant, but extremely pretty, pictures; more often he is dismissed as the rather unstable lover of Christina Rossetti"--Fredeman, p. 132. Stephens, along with William Michael Rossetti, was one of the non-artistic members of the PRB. He "made a few furtive attempts at painting, between 1848-1850 -- most of his works are now in the Tate Gallery -- but he quickly turned to art criticism, in which occupation he spent practically his entire life"--Fredeman 23.3.
"I have just received your letter & am much obliged by your recommendation of a studio. There is however one objection to the rooms you mention,viz. that they are furnished. Mine are unfurnished. Moreover I have them on such moderate terms that I think I could scarcely better myself in that respect by a move. At present I am staying at Ventnor painting backgrounds -- when I return to [Lown?] I will take care to call at once upon you and see the rooms...I am oblivious of time & date but it is Saturday.
Of the seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, autograph letters of James Collinson (1825?-1881) are by far the rarest. "[His] reputation...has been the most short-lived of all the original Pre-Raphaelites. Today [1965], he is sometimes remembered as the painter of a few insignificant, but extremely pretty, pictures; more often he is dismissed as the rather unstable lover of Christina Rossetti"--Fredeman, p. 132. Stephens, along with William Michael Rossetti, was one of the non-artistic members of the PRB. He "made a few furtive attempts at painting, between 1848-1850 -- most of his works are now in the Tate Gallery -- but he quickly turned to art criticism, in which occupation he spent practically his entire life"--Fredeman 23.3.