Henry Collen facts for kids
Henry Collen (9 October 1797, Middlesex – 8 May 1879, Brighton) was an English miniature portrait painter to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and the Duchess of Kent. Later in life he turned to photography and was the first professional calotypist in London, blending his artistic skills with the emerging technology of photography.
Contents
Early Life
Collen was born in Middlesex, England, and baptized at St. Pancras. He studied painting at the Royal Academy of Arts and trained under Sir George Hayter, a prominent artist of the time. The Hayter family remained close friends with Collen throughout his life.
Career as a portrait painter
Collen was personally acquainted with Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria), serving as her drawing teacher and miniature portrait painter. For her 14th birthday in 1833, he gifted her a "little painting for my album," and she sat for portraits by him on multiple occasions.
Collen was friends with Thomas Sully and requested on one occasion that his paint brushes be given to Sully after his death.
Between 1820 and 1872, Collen exhibited over 100 paintings at the Royal Academy and the Society of Botanical Artists (SBA). He won a silver medal at the Royal Academy in 1821.
Transition to photography
In the 1840s, Collen became interested in photography, particularly the calotype process, developed by his colleague Henry Fox Talbot. Collen combined his artistic expertise with Talbot's photographic knowledge, creating a unique style of overpainted paper photographs.
In August 1841, Talbot licensed Collen as the first professional calotypist in London. Collen opened a studio at 29 Somerset Street, where he produced around 1,000 portraits. His work was praised for its quality, though the fading of silver in the photographs over time has left many of his works uneven in appearance.
Collen is believed to have taken the earliest extant photograph of Queen Victoria in 1844 or 1845. His photographic miniatures were a blend of traditional painting and modern photography, often enhanced with paint.
Scientific contributions and legacy
Collen collaborated with Francis Ronalds, the Honorary Director of the Kew Observatory, on developing machines to record meteorological data using photography. He published the first paper on these instruments, though Ronalds later disputed Collen's claims of co-invention.
In 1842, Collen was commissioned to create photographic copies of the Treaty of Nanking, marking the end of the Opium Wars. This project is considered one of the earliest examples of photocopying an official document.
Later life and death
Collen continued to paint and photograph influential figures of his time until his death on 8 May 1879 in Brighton. His work remains a significant contribution to the early history of photography.
Personal life
On 12 August 1826, Collen married Ellen Dison (born 1805). The couple had a son, Edwin Henry Hayter Collen.
