Gathering Autumn Flowers

1894/1895

William Merritt Chase

Associated Names
William Merritt Chase

Artist, American, 1849 - 1916

The painting depicts a golden, grassy landscape with low green trees in the distance, leading towards vibrant blue water on the horizon. The field is streaked with patches of brown, light pink, light blue, rusty red, dark green, and dark red. People dressed in white are scattered throughout the field; closest to us, on the right, a child sits in the grass next to a pale green parasol. The child has pale skin, rosy cheeks, and dark hair visible under a white bonnet. They wear a white gown and black shoes, and they hold something yellow on their lap. In front of them is a red bucket, and behind them is a small orange cart. Farther away from us, on the left, a woman in a long white dress and a tan hat kneels or sits in the grass, and to the right another person stands even farther away near the low green trees, wearing a white dress and a red hat. The sky above is light blue, with soft, fluffy white clouds drifting across it. The painting employs soft, loose brushstrokes.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 53.34 × 96.52 cm (21 × 38 in.)
    framed: 74.14 × 119.7 × 5.24 cm (29 3/16 × 47 1/8 × 2 1/16 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2012.89.1

More About this Artwork

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Chase sale, American Art Galleries, New York, 7 January 1896, no. 1169); Louis Ettlinger [1845-1927], New York. Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia; bequest 1999 to NGA, with life interest to Mrs. Mellon; life interest released 2012.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1894

  • National Academy of Design Thirteenth Annual Exhibition, New York, 10 December 1894-5 January 1895, no. 222.

1906

  • Exhibition of American Paintings from the Collection of Louis Ettlinger, Esq., Lotos Club, New York, 1906, no. 9.

1987

  • William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock 1891-1902, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987-1988, no. 8, repro.

Bibliography

1895

  • "The National Academy of Design." Art Amateur (January 1895): 43.

1993

  • Pisano, Ronald G. Summer Afternoons: Landscape Paintings of William Merritt Chase. Boston, 1993: 101, repro.

2006

  • Pisano, Ronald G. The Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), vol. 3. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009, p. 98, no. L.94.

2009

  • Baker, D. Frederick. "A Painted Diary: The Landscapes of William Merritt Chase." Antiques & Fine Arts (Summer 2009): 121-122, repro.

2014

  • Kelly, Franklin. "A Lasting Legacy: The Completion of an Unparalleled Gift." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 51 (Fall 2014): 8, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right, WM in monogram: WM.M.Chase.

Wikidata ID

Q20190419

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