Marian Collier (née Huxley)

Marian Collier (née Huxley), painted in 1882, is a portrait of the artist's wife — Marian Huxley, daughter of T.H. Huxley, whom Collier married in 1879. The portrait was painted during the early years of their marriage, when Marian was in her mid-twenties. Marian Collier was herself artistically inclined and participated in the Huxley family's vigorous intellectual life; she died young in 1887, leaving Collier a widower at thirty. After her death, Collier married Marian's sister Ethel (with a special Act of Parliament required to permit such a marriage under English law). The National Portrait Gallery holds this portrait as part of its documentation of the extended Huxley circle, which was central to Victorian intellectual and scientific life. The portrait was painted with the intimate knowledge of a husband observing a wife — a quite different basis of observation from the commissioned portraits of scientists and public figures that formed the bulk of Collier's professional work.

Oil on canvas with the naturalist approach Collier applied to all his portraiture, here informed by the painter's intimate knowledge of his subject. The work likely shows a more informal posture and expression than his commissioned official portraits, the intimacy of the marriage relationship inflecting the formal choices.