Convent Thoughts is a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Charles Allston Collins which was created between 1850 and 1851.

In her left hand she holds an illuminated Breviary or Book of Hours, held not as though she had been reading it but so as to show us the Annunciation and the Crucifixion.

[1][2] Probably she modelled for preliminary sketches for the painting, but recent research has shown that the face is almost certainly that of Sarah Eliza Hackett.

[4] Although Collins was never formally a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was in sympathy with their aims and painted in their immensely detailed style.

Convent Thoughts has a place in the history of Pre-Raphaelitism, because the tide of opinion, initially hostile, was to some extent turned by a letter to The Times on 13 May 1851 from the influential critic John Ruskin praising the Pre-Raphaelite paintings at the Academy exhibition, in particular Convent Thoughts, about which he wrote: "I happen to have a special acquaintance with the water plant Alisma Plantago ... and as I never saw it so thoroughly or so well drawn, I must take leave to remonstrate with you, when you say sweepingly that these men 'sacrifice truth as well as feeling to eccentricity.'