Charles Edward PERUGINI (1838-1918) - Lot 262

Charles Edward PERUGINI (1838-1918) Portrait of Elizabeth Macready Perugini as "Greensleeves", circa 1880 Oil on canvas, monogrammed lower right 114.5 x 76.5 cm. Provenance: Auction, London, June 1984 A moving composition by Charles Edward Perugini, an Italian-born painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who here depicts his wife, Elizabeth Macready Perugini (1839-1929), known as (Kate), in the idealized guise of "Greensleeves", an emblematic figure of English Renaissance courtly song, attributed to King Henry VIII (1491-1547) about his unrequited love for his second wife and Queen of England Anne Boleyn (1501 or 1507-1536). Daughter of the celebrated novelist Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth, Kate Dickens grew up in a stimulating intellectual and artistic environment in the heart of Victorian London. She was named Macready after the great tragedian William Charles Macready, a close friend of her father. Her marriage to Charles Allston Collins, painter and writer, brother of novelist Wilkie Collins and member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, introduced her early on to the progressive artistic circles of the day. After Collins' untimely death, in 1874 she married Charles Edward Perugini, who was also close to the aesthetic ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, notably through his collaboration with Frederic Leighton and his admiration for Dante, Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Kate Perugini pursued an independent artistic career, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy from the 1870s onwards. Her work, often unjustly relegated to the background by her male contemporaries, is distinguished by a fine sensitivity to feminine expression, elegant compositions and meticulous attention to detail, inherited from the Pre-Raphaelite influence. A respected genre artist and portraitist, she frequented Holland Park Circle circles and contributed actively to London's cultural life. Her classical beauty and keen intelligence made her a muse, a model and an influential figure in Victorian art circles. She posed for many of Perugini's works, as well as for artists who were friends of the couple, constantly blending her identity as wife, wife, daughter of Dickens and artist in her own right. With this "Greensleeves" representation, Charles Edward Perugini delivers a portrait that is both personal and symbolic, anchoring his wife in an artistic tradition of courtly love, while elevating her to the status of a timeless icon.