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Lot Essay
The Italian born Perugini met Lord Leighton in Rome in 1854, and followed him to Paris the year after. He moved to London in 1863. Between 1870 and 1874 he received financial payments from Leighton sufficient to suggest he was acting as his studio assistant. His most Leighton-esque work, Girl Reading, from 1878, is in Manchester City Art Gallery. However, much of his oeuvre depicted his English compatriots at ease, such as in A Summer Shower, 1888, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, where `three graces’ shelter under a tree during a game of badminton.
It is possible that the model in this picture is Kate Dickens, daughter of the author, and widow of the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Charles Alston Collins. She and Perugini married in secret in 1873, the year of Collins’s death, and then more formally the following year. This picture was exhibited 3 years later. Kate was herself an artist, showing at the RA from 1877 onwards, and also sat to other artists in their circle, notably Millais, for whom she posed in The Black Brunswicker, 1860, Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums, Liverpool.
It is possible that the model in this picture is Kate Dickens, daughter of the author, and widow of the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Charles Alston Collins. She and Perugini married in secret in 1873, the year of Collins’s death, and then more formally the following year. This picture was exhibited 3 years later. Kate was herself an artist, showing at the RA from 1877 onwards, and also sat to other artists in their circle, notably Millais, for whom she posed in The Black Brunswicker, 1860, Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums, Liverpool.