Mrs Campbell McInnes (later Angela Thirkell)

'Mrs Campbell McInnes (later Angela Thirkell)' from 1914, in the National Gallery of Victoria, depicts the sitter at an interesting biographical moment. Angela Mackail (later McInnes, later Thirkell) was the granddaughter of Edward Burne-Jones and would go on to become a prolific and popular novelist in the 1930s and 1940s, known for her Barsetshire series of light social comedies. In 1914 she was Angela Campbell McInnes, daughter of J.W. Mackail (classical scholar and biographer of William Morris), and thus connected to the heart of the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts circle. Collier's portrait thus documents a young woman from one of the most culturally significant families in late Victorian England at the start of her adult life. The National Gallery of Victoria's acquisition reflects the strong collecting of British academic painting by Australian institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when such works were considered exemplary of the highest standards of European art. Collier's portrait would have been expected to convey both the sitter's physical appearance and something of the cultural pedigree she carried as a member of the Burne-Jones / Morris circle.

Oil on canvas with Collier's polished portrait manner, appropriate to depicting a young woman of social distinction. The handling likely employs the careful mid-tone modelling and soft light characteristic of his female portraits, which tend toward elegance without excessive sweetness. Attention to dress and setting would signal the sitter's cultural connections.