To Let [The Landlady], by James Collinson (1825-1881). 1856. Oil on canvas. 33 1/4 x 27 7/16 inches (84.7 x 69.7 cm), oval shaped. Collection of Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield Museums, accession no. VIS.14. Image reproduced via Art UK for the purpose of non-commercial research.
Collinson showed the principal versions of what were to become his most popular and commercially successful compositions at the Royal Academy in 1857, To Let, no. 102, and For Sale, no. 115. Contemporary reviews suggest the works were hung high up and were difficult to view critically. These paintings must be the ones now in the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield since they are dated 1856 and 1857 respectively. Ronald Parkinson has noted that there are three versions of To Let (74). The one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Mcllhenny Collection is 23 x 18 inches (58.4 x 45.7 cm) in size. The third version sold at the Forbes Magazine Collection sale at Christie's, London, on February 20, 2003, lot 97, where it was purchased by John Schaeffer. This version was 24¼ x 18½ inches (61.5 x 47 cm) in size. It subsequently sold again at the Schaeffer sale at Christie's on July 29, 2020, lot 67. This is the version that is the pair to the copy of For Sale in the Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham.
The painting features an attractive young woman in a black silk skirt, a white blouse, and a dark black velvet jacket with three-quarter length sleeves. The black clothes suggest she is a widow still in mourning and therefore possibly needing to rent a room in her home to supplement her income. The crimson bow around her neck matches the red of the camellia flower to her right in a pot on the window ledge. To Let is a piece of domestic genre painting similar to the style of popular Victorian artists like William Powell Frith. The possible extent to which Collinson was implying any moral purpose by the painting, however, remains controversial and unclear. A lady, presumably married judging from the ring on her left hand, is drawing a Venetian blind to reveal a sign in the window, only faintly legible in reverse, that offers furnished apartments 'To Let'. As Richard Berenson has pointed out: "the question arises as to whether Collinson intended the picture to be suggestive. This does seem to be the implication of the engraving of the picture by W. T. Davey issued the following year in 1858. This mezzotint was subtitled A fine prospect, Sir, an evident double entendre as it may apply as much to what the landlady is saying about her apartment as to what the male client is thinking about the landlady" (40). Susan Casteras has gone so far as to imply:
One interpretation suggests the figure is not a landlady (or a lady at all), but rather a woman offering herself as a commodity to be rented by an unseen male consumer… To modern eyes, the woman's gaze seems openly directed at the viewer, inviting closer examination of the available room and the attractive female herself. Although she wears a ring on her left hand, her martial status remains ambivalent. The flowers also attract attention and possessed symbolic associations in the language of flowers: the tall, erect day lily, for example, could connote coquetry; the bleeding heart plant, disappointment in love; and the hydrangea, heartlessness (or, if a geranium, preference or an unexpected meeting). [53]
On the other hand Helen Newman has given her very different interpretation of the meaning of these flowers in the language of flowers, noting that the flowers themselves are often given different meanings:
The flowers in the jardinière on the window might indicate more about her past/present circumstances. Japonica for sincerity, hydrangea for perseverance, camellia for graciousness and bleeding heart for love in all its forms, including everlasting love beyond life and into death…The bleeding heart, symbolic of love beyond death seems to be the one constant, possibly telling us all we need to know about the woman at the window, a woman of good character who, finding herself, in reduce circumstances, is obliged to let rooms. [119]
Some scholars have even questioned whether Collinson possibly intended this subject to be a version of Mrs. Bardell, Mr. Pickwick's widowed amorous landlady in Charles Dickens's popular novel The Pickwick Papers. Newman has pointed out that in Victorian times "Advertising 'Furnished Apartments' was regarded in some quarters as a euphemism for services of a different kind" (119). The ambiguity regarding the meaning of the picture was even noted in contemporary reviews. The critic for The Art Journal felt the point of the title was unclear: "No. 102. To Let, J. Collinson. The point of the title is not very clear; the picture shows a lady in a dark dress, in the act of drawing up her Venetian blind, at a window well furnished with flowers. The figure is round and well drawn" (167).
The painting became better known through an engraving, To Let- 'A Pleasant Prospect, Sir, a mezzotint by the engraver William Turner Davey. This was published on February 1, 1858 by the firm Lloyd Brothers & Co., the year after the picture had been shown at the Royal Academy. This is one of only two works by Collinson that were engraved for sale.
Bibliography
Beresford, Richard. Victorian Visions: Nineteenth-Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection. Sydney: Art Gallery of NSW, 2010, cat. 6, 40-41.
British and European Art. London: Christie's (July 20, 2020): lot 67. https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/british-european-art/james-collinson-british-1825-1881-67/92263.
Casteras, Susan Ed. The Defining Moment: Victorian Narrative Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection. Charlotte, North Carolina: Mint Museum of Art, 1999, cat. 8, 52-53.
Cox, Valerie A. "The Works of James Collinson: 1825-1881," The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society IV, no. 3, (1996): 6-7.
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The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art . London: Christie's (February 20, 2003): lot 97, 128-29.
Newman, Helen D. James Collinson (aka "The Dormouse"). Foulsham: Reuben Books, 2016, 116-20.
Parkinson, Ronald. "James Collinson." Pre-Raphaelite Papers, edited by Leslie Parris. London: Tate Gallery Publications 1984, 74-75.
"The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Literary Gazette XLI (May 23, 1857): 499.
To Let. Art UK. Web. 2 March 2024.
Treble, Rosemary. Great Victorian Pictures, their paths to fame. London: Publications Dept. Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978, cat. 6, 28.
Created 4 January 2005
Last modified 3 March 2024