 In the eighteen-thirties, Henry Collen was personally acquainted with young Princess Victoria, being her drawing teacher and her miniature portrait painter ... For her fourteenth birthday on 24 May 1833 Victoria received a 'little painting for my album' from Collen, and on at least two occasions she sat for her portrait by him.Henry Collen made a fairly moderate living as a portrait painter in London in the mid-19th century.Between 1820 and 1872 he exhibited at least one hundred paintings at the Royal Academy and the SBA, and by 1821 he had won a silver medal at the Royal Academy.