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CHARLES CALLAHAN PERKINS

1823-1886

[N the fifties of the nineteenth century New England was just awakening to an interest in contemporary European art, particularly that of Germany and France. The Athenæum, on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, not only offered hospitality to letters, but provided a picture-gallery expectant of purchases, gifts, and loans. Busts of honored Bostonians and other Americans found a home there; the casts of the best Greek statues began to adorn the reading-room, and exceptionally brave New-Englanders were learning to tolerate their unabashed beauty; and in an early exhibition Page had had the courage to hang there a Venus — at which visitors glanced hastily, quickening their steps. But there were few masters of the arts in Boston, the study of art was not generally respected, and a young man seriously interested in it could seek his education only across the ocean.

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Charles Callahan Perkins, son of James and Eliza Green (Callahan) Perkins, was born on Pearl Street in Boston on March 1, 1823. He was a half-brother of Bishop Doane of Albany and of Mgr. Doane of Newark, New Jersey. His father, a distinguished merchant of Boston, was well known for his public spirit, which manifested itself in extensive public charities; his grandfather founded the Perkins professorship of mathematics at Harvard College, and

* In substance and partly in form this sketch is drawn chiefly from the 'Memoir' by Samuel Eliot in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for February, 1887.

Dr. R. W. Hooper, for thirty years a Trustee of the Boston Athenæum, sitting one day in the reading-room, saw the door open and a young man bashfully look in. The Doctor kindly rose and asked if he could do anything for him. The young rustic asked in a low voice, 'Is this respectable, sir?' and the Doctor then perceived a young woman standing a little apart. 'Oh, yes,' he answered, 'entirely so. Bring your young friend in. These are celebrated statues from the antique, dug up in Greece. Let me show them to you.' They passed among the alcoves, seeing Athene, Artemis, the Discobolus, and the Gladiator rather uneasily, until they came to the statue of Uncle Toby removing the mote from the widow's eye. The young man, relieved at seeing the figure clothed and bewigged, exclaimed, 'Oh, that's General Washington! Was he dug up?' 'No,' replied the Doctor, 'that is Uncle Toby in Sterne's story.' 'Oh, your uncle!' said the young man, 'I ask your pardon, sir. I don't believe I ever saw your uncle.'

was one of the originators of the Boston Athenæum; and his uncle, Thomas H. Perkins, founded and richly endowed the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Charles C. Perkins received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in 1843, and that of Master of Arts three years later. As a boy he had shown an inborn love of music, and great skill in the use of his pencil; and shortly after leaving Cambridge he went to study painting and music in Europe, where he became a pupil of Ary Scheffer in Paris. Except for occasional returns he spent the next ten years abroad developing his own powers. He was married (in 1855) to Frances D. Bruen, daughter of the Reverend Matthias Bruen of New York.

In 1847 and 1848 he was studying both music and painting in Rome, where as a member of the art colony his interests extended to other students less fortunate than himself. In letters to his friends he constantly expressed hopes of some day seeing an Academy of Fine Arts in Boston, and upon his return for a three years' stay at home the contrast between our unadorned, somewhat colorless life and the advantages of Europe struck him so forcibly that the great scheme of his chosen work took still more definite shape. But it was the success of his lectures on the rise and progress of painting, delivered at Trinity College, Hartford, that definitely turned him from composition and performance in music. He returned to Europe for another prolonged stay of about a decade, during which he began his beautiful books on Tuscan and Italian sculpture, illustrated by etching, which until his return to the United States had been practically an unknown art in this country. His reputation abroad as a writer won him so much honor, and his nature and manner so many friends, that he might well have been excused for staying there as an author or a dilettante. France recognized his zeal for the Fine Arts by making him Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and a Corresponding Member of the Institut de France; but his interests were with American culture, and his other honors were destined to come from his own country.

His return was timely. A Boston Museum of Fine Arts had been projected, and he came at the moment of its founding. It was a great joy to him to find such an enterprise begun, and to be welcomed to a share in it; and doubtless it convinced him more than

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