Charles Callahan Perkins

S. Eliot: Memoir of the Life of Charles Callahan Perkins (Cambridge, MA, 1887)

W. M. Whitehill: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Centennial History, i (Cambridge, MA, 1970), pp. 8–10

An influential figure in the founding of the MFA, with an apparently impressive collection; in 1863 over half of the 325 paintings shown at the Athenaeum's annual exhibition was either owned by Perkins or by the Athenaeum itself. Represented a typical collector of the 1850s and 60s: broadly educated, considerable but not conspicuous wealth, whose family was tied to a city through generations of accomplishment.