Henry Collen - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Henry Collen was a miniature portrait painter

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

to Queen Victoria

Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

and the Duchess of Kent. Later in life he turned to photography and was on the cutting edge in photography in mid-19th century in London. He had great technical expertise and ability to transfer his ideas and data that he had gathered to new and different fields, such as painting and studies of light, optics, and the science of photography

Science of photography

The science of photography refers to the use of science, such as chemistry and physics, in all aspects of photography. This applies to the camera, its lenses, physical operation of the camera, electronic camera internals, and the process of developing film in order to take and develop pictures...

Portrait painter

Henry Collen was born on 9 October 1797 and baptized at St. Pancoras, 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

Royal Academy (disambiguation)

-Language and literature:* Real Academia Española , the institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language* Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a British drama school-Civilian education:...

and under the tutelage of Sir George Hayter

George Hayter

Sir George Hayter was a notable English painter, specialising in portraits and large works involving in some cases several hundred individual portraits...

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

Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

, 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

Bodelwyddan Castle

Bodelwyddan Castle, close to the village of Bodelwyddan, near Rhyl, Denbighshire in Wales, was built around 1460 by the Humphreys family of Anglesey as a manor house. Its most important association was with the Williams-Wynn family, which extended for around 200 years from 1690...

, 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” x 5 3/4”. This piece is on display at Bodelwyddan Castle, as are two other works, an oil painting on panel of Robert Vernon by George Jones

George Jones

George Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....

and Henry Collen, painted in 1848 and a portrait of Henry Bickersteth, Baron Langdale

Baron Langdale

Baron Langdale was a title that was created twice in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of England on 4 February 1658 when the prominent royalist commander of the English Civil War, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, was made by Baron Langdale, of Holme...

, painted in 1829, entitled Master of the Roles. This piece is also a watercolour miniature on ivory and only 4 7/8” x 3 7/8. There are two pictures of Charles Mayne Young

Charles Mayne Young

Charles Mayne Young , English actor, was the son of an eminent London surgeon. Young's first stage appearance was in Liverpool on September 20, 1798, as the character Young Norval in Home's blank verse tragedy Douglas...

. 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

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

has a regular miniature of a man, which is 4 7/8 in. x 3 3/4in., 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

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...

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

Duke of Northumberland

The Duke of Northumberland is a title in the peerage of Great Britain that has been created several times. Since the third creation in 1766, the title has belonged to the House of Percy , which held the title of Earl of Northumberland from 1377....

has a miniature of Lady Margaret

Fair Margaret and Sweet William

"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" or Lady Margaret or Lady Margaret and Sweet William is a folk song, collected by Francis James Child as Child ballad number 74...

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. x 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

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

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

Thomas Sully

Thomas Sully was an American painter, mostly of portraits.-Early life:Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater...

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

Edwin Henry Landseer

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, RA was an English painter, well known for his paintings of animals—particularly horses, dogs and stags...

, 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

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...

, 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).

Portrait photographer

By the 1840s, Henry Collen was established as a portrait painter of some note. It is also at this time that his photographic work became known. In March 1840 Collen became interested in experimenting with electrotyping

Electrotyping

Electrotyping is a chemical method for forming metal parts that exactly reproduce a model. The method was invented by Moritz von Jacobi in Russia in 1838, and was immediately adopted for applications in printing and several other fields...

daguerreotype plates for printing purposes. By spring he was experimenting extensively with the calotype processes, the lenses, the paper, etc. (Schaaf)

Calotype was an early photographic process developed by W.Henry Fox Talbot who was a colleague of Collen’s. Talbot supplied the photographic knowledge and Collen the artistic know-how. In an article titled “Photography in the 1840’s,” Peter Marshall

Peter Marshall

Peter Marshall may refer to:* Peter Marshall , British author whose works include Demanding The Impossible: A History of Anarchism and Europe's Lost Civilization...

describes the distinction between daguerreotypes and calotypes. “The daguerrotype spread rapidly around the world...There were some limitations on the spread.” Daguerre’s process was somewhat limited by his prior patent in the UK, and so only those professionals who could afford a license were able to do so. Meanwhile, Talbot patented his calotype process in the UK and the US, but he was unable to get a patent in France which also limited its growth. Also, Marshall states, “In general, most professional photographers used the daguerreotype process in the 1840’s, while the calotype was generally favored by those who were not atttempting to earn an income.” (A chart describing the differences between calotypes and daguerreotypes is included in the Appendix).

“In August, 1841, Fox Talbot licensed Henry Collen as the first professional photographer, or calotypist.” (source: www.terramedia.co.uk/Chromomedia/years/1840-1844.htm)
He then set himself up as a calotype portraitist in August 1841, in what was probably the first calotype portrait studio, at 29 Somerset Street, Portman Square, London (between Oxford Street and Manchester Square) near the present sight of Selfridge’s. “Licenses were expensive. Talbot took 30 percent of Collen’s takings for his use of the process” (Marshall). Henry received favorable responses from his colleagues about the quality of his portraits. He took approximately one thousand portraits using the calotype process. "Collen's photographic
miniatures were a compromise between the old art of miniature painting and the new art
of photography - they were overpainted paper photographs. The earliest extant
photograph of Queen Victoria was almost certainly taken by Collen in 1844 or 1845." (Bill Jay)

Robert A. Sobieszek had this to say about photography and Henry Collen in Victorian England:

"During the Victorian period, ‘artistical’ photographs
were customarily judged on four points:

First, that they were exact replicas of Nature’s form and appearance.

Second, they were to communicate the “feeling, sentiment, or sensations of Nature” and be able to cause similar emotional reactions.

Third, and more vague, the artistic photograph was to record the romantic expressions and impressions of this same Nature.

And, fourth, the final photograph was to be formally and spiritually perfect, reflecting Nature’s perfections.

The landscapes of Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton was a pioneering British photographer, one of the first war photographers.-Early life:Roger Fenton was born in Crimble Hall, Heap, Bury, Lancashire, 28 March 1819. His grandfather was a wealthy cotton manufacturer and banker, his father a banker and Member of Parliament...

and Francis Frith
Francis Frith
Francis Frith was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom....

, and the portraiture of Antoine Claudet and Henry Collen . . . are clear and certain applications of the above prescriptions to photographic picture-making." (Sobieszek)

The distinguishing feature of Henry Collen’s photographic portraits was the fact that as an artist, he could touch up his portraits with paint. When he enhanced with paint, he was able to charge a bit more for them. Unfortunately, as time has passed, the silver of the photographs has faded, but the paint has not, so the portraits have an uneven, exaggerated, faded and sometimes splotchy look. It is thought that this is one reason why Collen’s work in photography has not been recognized as it may have been if the portraits had remained intact.

Photocopier

In the late 1970s, Larry Schaaf wrote about the contributions of Henry Collen to the field of photography in its early stages in London in the 19th century. Schaaf’s premise was that Collen’s work was indeed noteworthy, and had perhaps been overshadowed by the earlier work of William Henry Fox Talbot in the same field. The information on the following pages comes from Mr. Schaaf’s article titled, “Henry Collen and the Treaty of Nanking

Treaty of Nanking

The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China...

,” which appeared in The History of Photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, an international quarterly, October 1982.

The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842. The treaty signaled the end of the “Opium Wars” between China and England. It also ceded the island of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

to England and was of great commercial and psychological importance to the British Empire. Photography was in its infancy. Daguerre’s method had the “ability to record the fine detail” but would have supplied “only a small metal plate as a facsimile of the rice paper.” Talbot’s process was far more suitable for copying the original treaty, and so authorities turned to the first man licensed to practice in London” and the man who had the know-how to make the photographic copy of the 4 feet (1.2 m) treaty.(Schaaf)

Schaaf states, “Henry Collen was in the unique position of both owning the patent rights and of having access to the circles of power. As miniature-painter to the Queen, he would have been in a position to discuss such a project with the proper people...”

The treaty consists of 22 pages handwritten in English in ink and sixteen sheets of Chinese characters. On Christmas Day, Collen produced at least two copies of the 4 feet (1.2 m) document. “Copying a four foot -long document with delicate lettering out to the edges would be quite difficult, especially in 1842” (Schaaf). He goes on to state that he thinks Collen merits a great deal more study than he had been given to that date.

Since Larry Schaaf wrote his 1982 article about the Treaty of Nanking, R. Derek Wood has written another article titled “Photocopying the Treaty of Nanking in January 1843.” In it, Wood includes new information about the number of copies produced by Henry Collen and their whereabouts. It seems that the original treaty was brought to London for the Queen’s signature after Collen made the copy. At the last minute, it was decided that an extra copy should be made to hang at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...

, which is why Collen was working on it on Christmas Day. Wood believes that three copies were made in all. The copy that hung at the palace is thought to have been discarded but there is a copy at the International Museum of Photography

Museum of Photography

The Museum of Photography in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany, is one of the Berlin State Museums administered by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation....

at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. It is in book form and is bound in leather. (see photo) Mr. Wood’s article deciphers the long journey of this copy and the location of the original Chinese document. Collen’s copies were taken to China, but by 1877 the original could not be located. It seems that when in the very last few days of June in 1997, as Hong Kong was passed back to the People’s Republic of China, a(n)....announcement was made to reveal that Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist forces had secretly taken the original Treaty of Nanking when they retreated to Taiwan from China in 1949. And the documents have been hidden in a sealed vault of the Taiwan Foreign Ministry. (Wood)

Meanwhile, in 1952, the George Eastman House was offered for purchase one of Henry Collen’s copies from a dealer of rare books in California. It was unknown how this dealer had obtained this copy. It is Wood’s contention that this copy was brought to California by a member of Chiang Kai-shek’s forces who fled from Taiwan to California just before February, 1952.

Wood’s article also includes copies of bills financial costs and copies of the treat (included in Appendix).

At any rate, even after such seemingly important strides in the infant field of photography, Henry Collen still had unsurmountable hurdles to face in his attempts to make photography a financially viable profession. The problem, in part, was due to the nature of his relationship to Talbot.

The relationship between Henry Collen and Henry Talbot seems quite complex. They were probably good friends. Talbot originated the calotype process and licensed Collen to practice it. Henry paid Talbot a fair share of his profits. Collen worked to perfect the process and invested considerable time and energy into this work. He wanted patent protection rights from Talbot because of this. Talbot stalled in this area. As mentioned earlier, Talbot had the scientific knowledge and Collen the artistic, but for some reason, Talbot did not pursue the business possibilities attendant to the caloytype process. When Collen was asked to photograph the Treaty of Nanking, Talbot’s wife later lamented about why Talbot himself hadn’t done the job “for her Majesty.” (Schaaf).

Schaaf also states that Talbot for some reason did not share all of his expertise with Collen, and at some point Henry’s lack of scientific know-how limited his ability to experiment further. Henry Collen had taken over one thousand calotype portraits but had received payment for only 265 of them. It was not profitable for Collen or Talbot to continue. He ended his calotype business in 1844 and retired to St. Albans in 1861. He had photographed some of the most important people of his day and his photographic work was respected enough to hang in Buckingham Palace.

The largest collections of his photographic works are in the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. and The Science Museum

Science Museum (London)

The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....

in London as well as the Fox Talbot Museum and the Royal Photographic Society.

In spite of an unfortunately shortened photographic career, Henry Collen is mentioned and published in various journals of photography and science (see appendix).

Portraits

Photography

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