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Titles
Only one title has been suggested:
- 'Portrait of William M. Chase' (1890, YMSM). 1
Description
According to the Pennells, it was 'a full-length ... in frock-coat and top hat, a cane held jauntily across his legs'. 2
Sitter
M. Menpes, W. M. Chase and J. McN. Whistler, photo, Library of Congress, LOT 12422
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) . A photograph of Whistler with Chase and Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938), about this time, was published by Menpes, and is reproduced above. 3
William Merritt Chase, Portrait of J. McN. Whistler, 1885, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Chase met Whistler in London in 1885 and each painted the portrait of the other, apparently working turn and turn about. Whistler appreciated 'the Colonel and his kindliness and good companionship ... Your stay here was charming for me and I only fear that you may have carried away an impression of intolerance and disputatiousness as my characteristics', but, 'Our two pictures the World must will have still to wait for - We rather handicapped each other!' 4
Whistler, in a letter to the World, 13 October 1886, wrote of his (unfinished) portrait of Chase that he had 'made him beautiful on canvas - the Masher of the Avenues', and contrasting this portrait with what he called Chase's 'monstrous lampoon' upon himself. 5
Notes:
1: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 322).
2: Pennell 1908 [more] , vol. 2, pp. 26, 29-30.
3: Menpes 1904 A [more] , photograph of sitter repr. f.p. 152.
4: Whistler to Chase, draft, [1 September 1885], GUW #00594.
5: Whistler to Edmund Yates, The World, London, 13 October 1886, reprinted in Whistler 1890 [more] , pp. 184-85, 'Nostalgia'; GUW #11432.
Last updated: 3rd January 2021 by Margaret
