James Collinson (1825–1881): A Victorian Precursor to Impressionism James Collinson was a British painter born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 1825, the son of a bookseller. His artistic journey began at the Royal Academy School and continued as a fellow student alongside luminaries like Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, marking him as a pivotal figure within the burgeoning Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850. This association profoundly shaped his aesthetic sensibilities and intellectual pursuits. Collinson’s unwavering faith—a conversion to Catholicism followed by a return…