Mother and Child by a Stile, with Culver Cliff, Isle of Wight, in the Distance
Date:
1849 to 1850
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
20 3/4 x 16 5/8 inches (52.7 x 42.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.113
Gallery Label:
James Collinson was an early associate of the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood, which formed in 1848. He was formally invited to join in 1849 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his fellow classmate at the Royal Academy Schools. At that time, Collinson had converted to Catholicism but, finding it an obstacle to marrying the poet Christina Rossetti, he became Anglican again in 1849. The next year, however, he reverted to Catholicism, broke off his engagement, renounced the Brotherhood, and quit painting entirely for several years. This painting belongs to that troubled time during his engagement and was made on a visit to the Isle of Wight in 1849. Collinson’s investment in recording the minutest details of this landscape, from the foreground plants to the background coastline, reflects his interest in Pre-Raphaelite ideas of “truth to nature.” The woman’s features bear a strong resemblance to those of Christina Rossetti, although the precise narrative of this subject has not been identified. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
