John Maler Collier

While the highest stratum of society adored Collier’s portraits, the wider public knew him better for his “problem pictures”. Enormously popular in the early 1900s, these pictures depicted scenes of moral content raising dilemmas connected with family life. At exhibitions crowds gathered around these paintings. Collier called these works “the little tragedies of modern life”, the most significant of which are perhaps The Prodigal Daughter (1903) and The Fallen Idol (1913). The latter depicts a young, dissolute wife who seems to have just confessed her sins to her probably indifferent husband.

From the page of Lady Godiva