FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2025 
A Pre-Raphaelite Muse, by Charles Edward Perugini
D ated 1880, a superb oil on canvas by Charles Edward Perugini will be presented at the sale on 20 June, organised by Tessier & Sarrou et Associés. The presumed sitter, Kate Perugini, is depicted as Greensleeves – the mysterious young woman with “green sleeves” immortalised in the most famous courtly song of the English Renaissance.Born Catherine Dickens, Kate was the youngest daughter of the renowned writer Charles Dickens and the wife of Charles Perugini. A painter in her own right, she enjoyed some success with her portraits and genre scenes, and was portrayed several times by artists of her day – most notably by John Everett Millais. He chose her as a model as early as 1860 for the female figure in The Black Brunswicker, and later for a portrait exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881.
Deeply devoted to his wife, Perugini seemed to have found in her the ideal muse, portraying her both in modern dress and historical guise. Influenced by Frederic Leighton, whom he met in Rome in the early 1850s, Perugini adopted in this portrait a brushwork reminiscent of his mentor, particularly in the rendering of skin and fabric textures. Like Leighton, Perugini succeeds in creating a composition that is both harmonious and elegantly unified, enhanced by a vividness and freshness of surface..
