Antique Original Still-Life Oil Painting, American School of William Merritt Chase

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Oil on canvas, wax-relined sometime later to original stretchers after WWII (with staples). Displayed in a new ornate wood frame. … Read more Oil on canvas, wax-relined sometime later to original stretchers after WWII (with staples). Displayed in a new ornate wood frame. Several auction stamps verso

Indistinctly signed, this piece so resembles the style of American painter William Merritt Chase that we consider it to be from his early New York School (a student) or perhaps of his Circle.

Although restrained, this contemplative Still-life table scene gladdens the senses. The surfaces of the apple and the kitchen objects all function as reflectors of light. Their luster diverges with the soft opaque quality of other foodstuffs and the floral tablecloth. Of unexpected charm is an elfin figure with tiny wings who has alighted onto the table! What is his mission? What is he holding? The painting compels us to pause in reverie for its pleasingness and serendipitous mirth.

William Merritt Chase was a prolific American painter of the 19th and early 20th century. At the age of twenty-three Chase traveled to Munich where he studied for five years. He encountered the great tradition of Flemish and Dutch painting, as well as important painters of the European Avant Garde. He developed an eclectic style that embraced Impressionism without rejecting his debt to the Old Masters, especially in still-life painting. When he returned to New York he opened a studio where he taught and collaborated with myriad painters, including some of the greatest American artists of the pre-World War I era. See less