1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pearce, Charles Sprague

PEARCE, CHARLES SPRAGUE (1851–), American artist, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the 13th of October 1851. In 1873 he became a pupil of Léon Bonnat in Paris, and after 1885 he lived in Paris and at Auvers-sur-Oise. He painted Egyptian and Algerian scenes, French peasants, and portraits, and also decorative work, notably for the Congressional Library at Washington. He received medals at the Paris Salon and elsewhere, and was decorated with the Legion of Honour, the order of Leopold, Belgium, the order of the Red Eagle, Prussia, and the order of Dannebrog, Denmark. Among his best known paintings are “The Decapitation of St John the Baptist” (1881), in the Art Institute of Chicago; “Prayer” (1884), owned by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association; “The Return of the Flock,” in the Bohemian Club, San Francisco; and “Meditation,” in the New York Metropolitan Museum.