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March 10th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
In order not to make this article excessively long I decided to reduce my personal commentary about this amazing artist in order to give way to his abridged biography below (which speaks quite clearly for itself). I only added a few personal short notes to the text plus the two tittles for each section. Regardless my list of favourite paintings by Perugini goes as follows: A Summer Shower (c.1888), Faithful (1879), the amazingly hyper-realistic I Know A Maiden Fair To See, Take Care (1868), Girl Reading (1878), Peonies (1887), The Rivals (1876), Greensleeves (c.1870), Silvia (1888), and special mention to the quasi-symbolist The Goldfish Bowl (c.1870).
An Italian gentleman in England
Charles (Carlo) Edward Perugini was born in Naples on 1st September, 1839. He spent his childhood in England and took English nationality, but returned to Italy to study art under Giuseppe Bonolis and Giuseppe Mancinelli. He then moved onto Paris where he worked under Ary Scheffer.
He became a protégé of Lord Frederick Leighton (one of my favourite artists of this period), who brought him back to England in 1863. Perugini worked as Leighton’s studio assistant and occasional model. Under Leighton’s influence, he began as a painter of classical scenes. Leighton wrote to his mother:
“Carlo Perugini, whom I saw today… is a charming boy, most gentlemanlike, and his that peculiar childlike simplicity which belongs to none but Italians.”
In 1860 Perugini joined the Artists’ Rifle Corp where he served for twelve years. At first the regiment largely consisted of painters, sculptors, engravers, musicians, architects and actors. Its first commanders were the painters Henry Wyndham Phillips and Frederic Leighton. Over the next few years several outstanding artists who joined the regiment included (check the list of famous names): William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Luke Fildes, Valentine Cameron Prinsep, Charles Keene, John Leech, John Everett Millais, George Frederic Watts, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John William Waterhouse, Alfred Leete, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, William Frederick Yeames and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
It is stated that Perugini took his duties at the Artists’ Rifle Corp very seriously, unlike the many who were only interested in its social life’s aspects. In 1863 Perugini exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy. He had difficulty selling his early paintings but survived on payments he received from Frederic Leighton, who did what he could to help struggling artists like Perugini and Valentine Cameron Prinsep.
A tale of two artists
It is believed that Perugini fell in love with Kate Macready Dickens -daughter of famous British author Charles Dickens– while she was married to the artist, Charles Allston Collins who died in 1873 (aged forty-five) from a cancerous tumour in the stomach. After a “secret wedding”, that year on 11th September, Carlo and Kate’s official wedding took place on 4th June 1874 at St. Paul’s Church in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge. The wedding consisted of only five guests, among them was the famous painter and colleague John Everett Millais.
Kate Dickens was also a very accomplished artist herself. Here is one of her paintings entitled Dora from 1892.
Kate (when aged 36) gave birth to a son, Leonard Dickens Perugini on 28th December, 1875. Unfortunately in July 1876 the baby became suddenly ill and died a couple of days later.
In spite of this tragedy life went on for Perugini who, by that time, painted a large number of portraits of Kate, including A Labour of Love, Kate, Doubt (also featuring Mamie Dickens) and Kate Perugini. Claire Tomalin, the author of Dickens: A Life (2011) wrote:
“Even the loss of their only child in infancy did not darken their days permanently. They lived a hard-working and sociable life among their artistic and literary friends and, although they never made much money, by the late 1870s Kate had established herself as a painter, and her pictures were accepted by the Royal Academy.”
Perugini established himself as one of the most important portrait painters of the period. Perugini’s paintings of important personalities include Miss Helen Lindsay (1891), the daughter of Coutts Lindsay, founder of the Grosvenor Gallery. Another important portrait was that of Sophy Gray, the sister-in-law of John Everett Millais. He also painted, John Forster, the long-time friend of the Dickens family.
During the First World War Perugini’s health began to go into decline. He suffered from angina and a problem with his bladder which debilitated him gradually. Charles Edward Perugini, aged 79, died at his home on 22nd December 1918. His funeral was held at St. Nicholas’s Church in Sevenoaks and was buried in the same grave as his baby son.
Catherine Elizabeth Macready Perugini (née Dickens) survived her husband by ten years, dying at the age of 89. One of the causes of death listed on her death certificate was “exhaustion”.
Sources: Most excerpts taken from Spartacus Educational Publishers Ltd and wikipedia.
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