Portrait of Girl by Daughter of Dickens c. 1880 Pre-Raphaelite Masterwork ^Sale

KATE PERUGINI (1839-1929) - “Molly’s ball dress”
Signed with monogram (lower left).
Pretty well-preserved oil painting on canvas 119 cm x 66 cm (46,8 in x 26 in) has average wear and scratch to lower left; it was restored: edge of canvas relined and retouches provided to paint losses and patched tears; it is well conserved, looks gorgeous and ready to hang. 125,5 cm by 72 cm (49.4 x 28.34 in) frame is contemporary to painting.
Please study good resolution images for cosmetic condition.
"We are grateful to Lucinda Hawksley, great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, for her assistance in preparing this catalog entry!"
EXHIBITED:
London, Royal Academy, 1885, no. 366. Chicago, World’s Columbian Exposition, Woman’s Building, 1893.
LITERATURE:
Academy Notes, 1885, illustrated p. 48.
Perugini was the daughter of the novelist Charles Dickens (1812-70). She first married Charles Alston Collins (1828-73), the Pre-Raphaelite painter whose best-known work, Convent Thoughts, is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. After his death, she married the artist Carlo Edward Perugini (1839-1918). As the daughter of the most famous writer of his age, she enjoyed celebrity and a high profile in society. She moved in artistic circles which allowed her to explore her own painting and to meet many of the most inspirational men and women of London, Paris and Italy. Millais encouraged Kate’s ambitions and she became a successful portrait painter, particularly insightful when painting children. In 1859 Millais immortalized Kate as a woman parting with her lover on the eve of Waterloo, in The Black Brunswicker (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight).
Molly, the subject of this picture, was the daughter of Sir John Hare (1844-1921), actor and Manager of the Garrick Theatre, London. Perugini also painted Hare’s other daughter Effie (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1883, no. 80). Our painting clearly shows the influence of Millais’s child portraits that were achieving enormous success at the time, such as For the Squire (1882, private collection) and Little Miss Muffet (dated 1884, sold at Christie’s, King Street, 23 November 2005, lot 11). Perugini also echoes Regency portraiture in her use of a restrained silk dress, long organza gloves and monogrammed bag.