Marble bust donated by Mrs. Edward H. Collins (Mary Hodgson Collins) in 1921.
Mary Hodgson Collins donated a wide variety of items including clothing, kitchen items, Native American items, daguerreotypes, photos, furniture, books, and various items from her travels in the U.S. and Europe. See MSS 000131., While visiting Rome, Mary and Edward Collins sat for sculptor Luella M. Varney to make marble busts of them. They met Luella M. Varney through the Christian Science movement where Luella was their student in a class they taught. Luella Varney was born in New York and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when young. She studied painting and modeling in high school and traveled to Rome, Italy where she earned a degree in art from the University of Rome. There she met and married Teodoro Serrao, an Italian Lawyer. After his death she returned to the United States and continued her artistic career, Mary Hodgson (1839-1928) was born in New York in 1839. She came to Colorado in 1861 with her brothers Joseph and William, her mother, Margaret, and Joseph's wife, Lucretia. Mary married Edward H. Collins in 1865. They had no children. Mary began painting lessons from W. F. Porter in 1876 and a few years later started teaching painting and drawing. She is mainly known for her landscape and floral scenes being inspired by the Colorado landscape and her travels in Europe. On January 7 and 8, 1886 there was a reception at 432 Larimer in Denver for Mary Hodgson Collins and an exhibit of her paintings which she had done when she was in Europe.