Charles Callahan Perkins: early Italian Renaissance art and British museum practice in Boston

Abstract

Art historians have highlighted Charles Callahan Perkins’ pivotal role in promoting London’s South Kensington Museum (‘South Kensington’) as the model for the new Boston Museum of Fine Arts (‘Boston Museum’) incorporated in 1870. In particular, scholars have pointed to the MFA’s embrace of the South Kensington’s central and distinguishing tenet, a belief in art history’s ability to elevate the educational level of the public and the industrial design of everyday objects. However, there has been no systematic identification of the specific South Kensington museum practices adopted by Perkins, nor of the form that they took under his all-encompassing direction. This article addresses these lacunae. It also asserts that the centrality of early Italian Renaissance art to not only the South Kensington’s educational mission, but also that of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, was at the heart of Perkins’ accomplishments in Boston — ones that have largely been understated since his death in a carriage accident in 1886.

Keywords

• Italian Renaissance art
• Museum of Fine Arts Boston
• South Kensington Museum
• Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition
• Charles Callahan Perkins
• art museums
• 19th century
• art historiography
• 19th century