In 1811, Collins sold a picture entitled "The Young Fifer" to the Marquis of Stafford for 80 guineas (£88), and the next year produced the work which made him famous, "The Sale of the Pet Lamb", which was sold for 140 forty guineas (£154) and engraved by S. W. Reynolds. He now became the chief support of his family after the death of his father (in financial difficulty) and found some valuable patrons, especially Sir Thomas Freeman Heathcote, Sir John Leicester, Sir Robert Peel, Sir George Beaumont, and Lord Liverpool. In 1814 two pictures, "The Blackberry Gatherers" and "The Birdcatchers" (both sold privately) won him an associateship of the Royal Academy (ARA).