Henry Collen - Portrait Painter

Portrait Painter

Henry Collen was born on 9 October 1797 and baptized at St. Pancras, Middlesex. When he was 29, he married Ellen Dison, who was born in 1805 and had spent her childhood in Ireland. They were married on 12 August 1826 in Maghera, Ireland.

Henry Collen learned to paint at the Royal Academy and under the tutelage of Sir George Hayter whose family had been, and remained close personal friends of the Collen family . In fact, in her letters, Ellen Collen states that she met Henry at the home of John Hayter, Sir George's younger brother, also a prolific painter. Henry Collen was the godfather of Sir George Hayter's third son Angelo Collen Hayter (1819–1898) who was an amateur painter and Sir George Hayter was the godfather of Henry's son Edwin (1843–1911), who was baptised Edwin Henry Hayter Collen (later Lieutenant General G.C.I.R., C.B.)

Henry was the editor of DeBrett's Peerage from 1844 to 1879, which may have afforded him very useful contact with nobility. "In the eighteen-thirties, Henry Collen was personally acquainted with young Princess Victoria, being her drawing teacher and her miniature portrait painter." Also, "For her fourteenth birthday on 24 May 1833 Victoria received a 'little painting for my album' from Collen, and on at least two occasions she sat for her portrait by him." (R. Derek Wood (1994)).

Henry Collen made a fairly moderate living as a portrait painter in London in the mid-19th century. Between 1820 and 1872 he exhibited at least one hundred paintings at the Royal Academy and the SBA, and by 1821 he had won a silver medal at the Royal Academy. Some of his portraits from collection of the National Portrait Gallery hang in the Bodelwyddan Castle, in the library, along with "other portraits displayed in the room (which) show some of the greatest writers and thinkers of the Victorian period." (site: www.npg.orguk/bodlibp.htm)

One of the four Henry Collen portraits was of a John Avery titled "Surgeon", which is a watercolour miniature on ivory, being only 8" × 5¾". This piece is on display at Bodelwyddan Castle, as are two other works, an oil painting on panel of Robert Vernon by George Jones and Henry Collen, painted in 1848 and a portrait of Henry Bickersteth, Baron Langdale, painted in 1829, entitled Master of the Roles. This piece is also a watercolour miniature on ivory and only 4⅞" × 3⅞. There are two pictures of Charles Mayne Young. One is another watercolour on ivory, painted in 1824. The other is a mezzotint published in 1826 but is not on display. Another piece that is not on display is a stipple engraving of Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Ellenborough, published in 1829. So, in all, six portraits that hang in the NPG are "associated" with Henry Collen.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a regular miniature of a man, which is 4⅞ in. × 3¾in., signed H. Collen/1846, the H and C being separate. The National Portrait Gallery has a miniature of Baron Langdale by Collen, 1829. The Wallace Collection has a miniature of Sarah the Countess of Warwick by Collen, 1825, after Hayter. At Windsor Castle are several miniatures by Collen, including portraits of the Duchess of Kent (1829) and Lady Catherine Vernon Harcourt (1838). One of them is a copy after Hayter. The Duke of Northumberland has a miniature of Lady Margaret Percy by Collen.

According to G. Scharf's Third Portion of a Catalogue of Pictures.... Duke of Bedford, 1878, p. 109:

The Duke of Bedford has an oval miniature of a lady, about 35/8 in. × 27/8 in., signed in front with a scratched signature "H Collen 1840" (the H and C not forming a monogram) and inscribed at the back "1840/painted by Henry Collen/Miniature Painter to/ The Queen and H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent/29 Somerset St /Portman Square/London." It is broader in treatment than many of his earlier works.

And the British Museum has some engraved portraits by Collen.

Henry Collen worked in the company of many respected artists in mid-19th century London, as well as important scientists of his day. He collaborated in the early 1840s with the famous astronomer, John Frederick William Herschel. He may have associated with the artist Thomas Sully and his wife. Besides being close to the Hayter family, who were already established artists, Henry and Ellen were also close friends of Edwin Landseer, the well-known painter of animals and pastoral English landscapes as well as the designer of the four bronze lions at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London. Landseer was the godfather of Henry's only son, Edwin. In the book of printed correspondence between Ellen and Edwin Collen, titled Letters from my Mother, Ellen mentioned that Landseer sent a note and a gift at Edwin's baptism. She also mentions going to the funeral of Charles Landseer. It is probable that Henry's son, Edwin Collen was named after Edwin Landseer (or perhaps after Henry's grandfather, Edwin Eichhorn).