Charles Edward Perugini

Perugini was born in Naples, but lived with his family in England from the ages of six to 17.

Under Leighton's influence, he began as a painter of classical scenes; then "he turned to the more profitable pastures of portrait painting, and genre pictures of pretty women and children.

"[1] In 1874, he married the youngest daughter of novelist Charles Dickens, who as Kate Perugini[2] pursued her own artistic career, sometimes collaborating with her husband.

Perugini's 1878 picture A Girl Reading, perhaps his best-known single work, is in the collection of the Manchester Art Gallery.

Perugini and his wife maintained an active social life in artistic circles of their era.