William Merritt Chase
88.9 x 63.5 cm
May I Come In? belongs to one of the celebrated series of studio interiors that occupied William Merritt Chase throughout the 1880s and 1890s, a body of work that ranks among the most distinctive in his oeuvre. Executed in pastel—a medium that Chase promoted to unprecedented heights in America—the work embodies the cosmopolitan sensibility and refined aestheticism that made the artist one of the leading figures of the Gilded Age. Combining intimate domestic subject matter with a sophisticated orchestration of color, atmosphere, and decorative form, the composition offers a rare glimpse into the world Chase fashioned around himself and reveals the extent to which art, home, and personal identity became inseparable within his creative life.
Provenance
The artist;
[Newhouse Galleries, New York and St. Louis, circa 1930];
Leslie Waggener Jr., Dallas, Texas, circa 1935-51; by descent to
Nelson Waggener, Dallas, Texas, 1951-86;
[A.J. Kollar Fine Paintings, LLC; Seattle, Washington];
Private Collection, Seattle, Washington
Exhibitions
Society of Painters in Pastel, New York, 1st Exhibition, March 17–29, 1884, no. 38Boston Art Club, Boston, Exhibition of Pictures, Studies and Sketches, by Mr. Wm. M. Chase, Under the Auspices of the American Art Association at the Gallery of the Boston Art Club, November 13–December 4, 1886, no. 111
World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, 1893
Newhouse Galleries, New York, circa 1930, as Interior of the Studio
Joseph Sartor Galleries, Dallas, Texas, Exhibition of the Leslie Waggener Collection of Paintings, November 21–December 6, 1948, no. 21, as His Studio
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master, 2016–17
Literature
"American Painting," Art Amateur 29, no. 3, August 1893, p. 56
Wilbur Peat, "Checklist of Known Work by William M. Chase," in Chase Centennial Exhibition, Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1949, listed under "Interiors" as His Studio
Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: The Paintings in Pastel, Monotypes, Painted Tiles and Ceramic Plates, Watercolors, and Prints, vol. 1, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 6–7, no. P.14, illus. in color
Elsa Smithgall, Erica Hirschler, Katherine Bourguignon, Giovanna Ginex, and John Davis, William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master, Washington, D.C.: The Phillips Collection, in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2016, p. 24, pl. 17; p. 104, illus. in color
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