CIRCLE OF WILLIAM MERRIT CHASE (AMERICAN 1849-1916), ESTUARY LANDSCAPE

CIRCLE OF WILLIAM MERRIT CHASE (AMERICAN 1849-1916) ESTUARY LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas Bears signature (lower left) 37 x 31cm (14½ x 12in.) Unframed This small light-filled landscape displays all of the hallmark characteristics of works created at the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School. Located on the southern shore of Long Island, New York, the school was founded in 1891 by summer resident Mrs. William Hoyt and financed largely by her and other wealthy seasonal visitors to the area. The Shinnecock school immediately became the centre of a thriving art colony where up to 150 amateur and professional artists gathered annually over the summer months for instruction in plein-air painting under the guidance of the school’s director William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) until it closed in 1902.(1) As one of the nation’s most successful artists and popular teachers, Chase’s impressionist landscapes commanded widespread critical approval and were in high demand on the American art market. Although Shinnecock was never known as a site of outstanding scenic appeal, the locale’s ocean views, sandy beaches, dunes, and fields dotted with scrub oak and pine became signature subjects for Chase, who managed to find beauty in the barren scenery. Chase encouraged his students to set up their easels near spots where he regularly painted out-of-doors. Indeed, the small scale and summary brushwork suggest that this painting – possibly by one of Chase’s students – was completed over one painting session. In this instance the composition provides a distant view of the Ponquogue Point Lighthouse (demolished in 1948) that was situated at the end of Hampton Bays. Shinnecock Landscape (as it is titled here) has a strong relationship to a securely documented work by Chase that carries a similarly generic title – Landscape (Shinnecock Bay). Listed as L.222 and reproduced in the Chase catalogue raisonné (as unlocated), the small panel was offered at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2025.(2) Both paintings show the indistinct form of the lighthouse across the bay, seemingly observed from approximately the same spot of scrubland in the foreground. However, the present work is vertically oriented – a format only rarely used by Chase for his Shinnecock compositions. The faint fragment of a signature at the lower left of Shinnecock Landscape opens a set of questions that are currently unanswerable. For instance, is the painting an autograph work by Chase that was made as a demonstration piece for his students? Is it the product of one of his students whose work he signed in a gesture of approval? The inscription appears to echo the manner in which Chase signed his last name, yet to give the painting to Chase simply on this basis seems unwise given that the overall facture evident in the work appears less refined (although stylistically akin) compared to other works by the artist. Finally, Shinnecock Landscape is not listed in the Chase catalogue raisonné, and for that reason alone, the painting’s authorship must remain under the designation “Circle of William Merritt Chase”. 1. For Chase’s Shinnecock works, see D. Scott Atkinson and Nicolai Cikovsky. Jr., William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock 1891-1902 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1987; and Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil [vol. III of the catalogue raisonné] (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009): 79-137. 2. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil: 110; Landscape (Shinnecock Bay), oil on panel, 8 ¼ x 12 ½ inches, was offered at Sotheby’s, New York, November 19, 2025, lot 318. We are grateful to Dr. Barbara Dayer Gallati, author of William Merrit Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886-1890, for her help in preparing this catalogue entry. Condition Report Disclaimer, CIRCLE OF WILLIAM MERRIT CHASE (AMERICAN 1849-1916), ESTUARY LANDSCAPE, CIRCLE OF WILLIAM MERRIT CHASE (AMERICAN 1849-1916) ESTUARY LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas Bears signature (lower left) 37 x 31cm (14½ x 12in.) Unframed This small light-filled landscape displays all of the hallmark characteristics of works created at the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School. Located on the southern shore of Long Island, New York, the school was founded in 1891 by summer resident Mrs. William Hoyt and financed largely by her and other wealthy seasonal visitors to the area. The Shinnecock school immediately became the centre of a thriving art colony where up to 150 amateur and professional artists gathered annually over the summer months for instruction in plein-air painting under the guidance of the school’s director William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) until it closed in 1902.(1) As one of the nation’s most successful artists and popular teachers, Chase’s impressionist landscapes commanded widespread critical approval and were in high demand on the American art market. Although Shinnecock was never known as a site of outstanding scenic appeal, the locale’s ocean views, sandy beaches, dunes, and fields dotted with scrub oak and pine became signature subjects for Chase, who managed to find beauty in the barren scenery. Chase encouraged his students to set up their easels near spots where he regularly painted out-of-doors. Indeed, the small scale and summary brushwork suggest that this painting – possibly by one of Chase’s students – was completed over one painting session. In this instance the composition provides a distant view of the Ponquogue Point Lighthouse (demolished in 1948) that was situated at the end of Hampton Bays. Shinnecock Landscape (as it is titled here) has a strong relationship to a securely documented work by Chase that carries a similarly generic title – Landscape (Shinnecock Bay). Listed as L.222 and reproduced in the Chase catalogue raisonné (as unlocated), the small panel was offered at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2025.(2) Both paintings show the indistinct form of the lighthouse across the bay, seemingly observed from approximately the same spot of scrubland in the foreground. However, the present work is vertically oriented – a format only rarely used by Chase for his Shinnecock compositions. The faint fragment of a signature at the lower left of Shinnecock Landscape opens a set of questions that are currently unanswerable. For instance, is the painting an autograph work by Chase that was made as a demonstration piece for his students? Is it the product of one of his students whose work he signed in a gesture of approval? The inscription appears to echo the manner in which Chase signed his last name, yet to give the painting to Chase simply on this basis seems unwise given that the overall facture evident in the work appears less refined (although stylistically akin) compared to other works by the artist. Finally, Shinnecock Landscape is not listed in the Chase catalogue raisonné, and for that reason alone, the painting’s authorship must remain under the designation “Circle of William Merritt Chase”. 1. For Chase’s Shinnecock works, see D. Scott Atkinson and Nicolai Cikovsky. Jr., William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock 1891-1902 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1987; and Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil [vol. III of the catalogue raisonné] (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009): 79-137. 2. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil: 110; Landscape (Shinnecock Bay), oil on panel, 8 ¼ x 12 ½ inches, was offered at Sotheby’s, New York, November 19, 2025, lot 318. We are grateful to Dr. Barbara Dayer Gallati, author of William Merrit Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886-1890, for her help in preparing this catalogue entry. Shinnecock Landscape, Landscape (Shinnecock Bay), Shinnecock Landscape, William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock 1891-1902, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil, William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil, Landscape (Shinnecock Bay), William Merrit Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886-1890, Condition Report Disclaimer

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