Spring Flowers (Peonies)

One of William Merritt Chase’s masterpieces in the medium of pastel, Spring Flowers (Peonies) presents a decorative arrangement formed by a woman in a dressing gown and a large pot of peony flowers resting on a green cloth-draped table against a curtained background. The woman's garment is not a kimono; instead, the cut of the sleeves and width of the skirt suggest that it is western style dressing gown, perhaps produced in Japan for export. Chase shows his model with her face turned away and features unseen, although clearly she is as delicately beautiful as her sumptuous silks and the full blossoms toward which she turns as if to inhale their a fragrance. The delicate linear pattern of waves, grasses, and flowers on the background drapery and the asymmetrical design on the fan hanging from the woman’s left hand reiterate the Japanese inspiration for this composition of purely formal (and beautiful) elements, which are echoed in the glossy surface of the brass pot.

Spring Flowers (Peonies) reflects contemporary “Japonisme,” the European and American mania for all things Japanese in the decades following the mid-nineteenth-century opening of trade between Japan and the West. Chase was one of many artists who paid tribute in their work to Japanese fine and applied arts and an aesthetic that favored the flat, graphic rendering of three-dimensional forms, asymmetrical arrangements in shallow space, and the ideal of purely visual beauty, disassociated from narrative or content. Chase had enthusiastically collected examples of Japanese arts, which joined the large collection of various objects that filled his famous studio in New York City’s Tenth Street Studio Building, the setting for his numerous still-life paintings and interior views. In 1896, the year before he is thought to have made Spring Flowers (Peonies), financial difficulties had forced Chase to sell the contents of his studio, but this work demonstrates that painting decorative interiors and still lifes, as well as Japonisme, remained important to the artist.

Chase shared his Japonisme with the iconoclastic American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler, whose work he admired. As a decorative study of a female figure in exotic dress and complementary setting, Spring Flowers (Peonies) reflects Whistler’s influence. In place of Whistler’s concern for overall harmony, however, Chase deliberately contrasted localized areas of light, bright color with the brilliant deep orange of the Japanese fabric from the dressing gown set against the rich green of the tabletop, the golden glow of brass, and the highlights of the soft white blossoms.

An unusually large work for the delicate and challenging technique of pastel drawing, Spring Flowers (Peonies) ranks as one of Chase’s most ambitious and important works in that medium. Pastel had long been overlooked by professional artists when Chase and fellow painter Robert Blum (1857–1903) began to experiment with it in the early 1880s. In New York in 1884, the two founded the American Society of Painters in Pastel, an organization that helped popularize the medium. In 1889 and 1897 Chase showed Spring Flowers (Peonies) in two important exhibitions in Chicago, where it was lauded by critics and purchased by Bertha and Potter Palmer, then among America’s most innovative collectors of contemporary art. In Spring Flowers (Peonies), Chase “paints” with pastel, using a blended application to mimic the effect of oil paint—in contrast to the celebration of the medium’s distinctive dry softness in the open strokes of pure color that compose his large pastel of 1892, Hall at Shinnecock, (TF 1988.26).

Inter-State Annual Exposition of Chicago, Seventeenth Annual Exhibition, Gallery C, Exposition Building, Chicago, Illinois, September 4–October 19, 1889, no. 96 (as Spring Flowers). [exh. cat.]

Chase Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, November 23–December 26, 1897, no. 66 (as Peonies).

Loan Exhibition, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (organizer). Venue: University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, 1935–1942 (as White Peonies).

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 1994.

Attitudes Toward Nature, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 30, 1995–April 21, 1996.

American Treasures: Chase, Whistler and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

Selected Works from the Collections: Two Hundred Years of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–August 27, 1997.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 2004.

Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, [Gallery 163] The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15–July 2005.

William Merritt Chase , The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venues:The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, June 4–September 11, 2016; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, October 9, 2016–January 16, 2017; Ca’ Pesaro (Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia), Venice, Italy, February 11– May 28, 2017 [exh. cat.] (exhibited in Washington, DC and Boston, Massachusetts only) [exh. cat.]

Catalogue of Paintings Exhibited by the Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, (exh. cat, Inter-State Industrial Exhibition of Chicago). Chicago, 1889. Text p. 16, cat. no. 96 (checklist, as Spring Flowers).

"Mr. Chase's Pictures." Chicago Tribune (September 15, 1889). Text (as Spring Flowers).

Catalogue of Paintings by William Merritt Chase on exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1897. Text cat. no. 66 (checklist, as Peonies).

Important Art Property of the Bendix Foundation, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, New York (Sale 379, May 29, 1942): lot 31. Text p. 19; ill. p. 19 (as White Peonies).

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, New York (Sale 1166, Engilsh and American Furniture & Decorations, May 18–20, 1950): lot 329. Text p. 58, lot 329 (as Lady with Flowers).

Pisano, Ronald G. and Alicia Grant Longwell. Photographs from the William Merritt Chase Archives at the Parrish Art Museum. Southampton, NY: Parrish Art Museum, 1992. Ill. p. 26 (black & white, appears in installation photograph).

Sotheby's, New York, New York (Sale 6429 HASSAM, May 27, 1994): lot 32. Text lot 32; ill. lot 32 (color).

Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." The Journal of the American Medical Association 271, no. 22 (June 8, 1994): 1722. Text p. 1722; ill. cover (color).

Spring Flowers (Peonies) , William Merritt Chase. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 1994. Ill. (black & white).

Gallati, Barbara. William Merritt Chase. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1995. Text p. 115; ill. p. 114 (color, as Peonies).

Berman, Ann E. "Buy American." Art & Auction (October 1996): 132–37. Ill. p. 135 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 110, 193; ill. pp. 15 (color), 111 (color), 193 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 110, 193; ill. pp. 15 (color), 111 (color), 193 (black & white).

Pisano, Ronald G.; completed by D. Frederick Baker. William Merritt Chase; The Paintings in Pastel, Monotypes, Painted Tiles and Ceramic Plates, Watercolors and Prints (The Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work of William Merritt Chase, Vol 1). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2006. Text p. 26; Ill. front cover (color detail); p. 26, pl. 60 (color).

Jensen, Kristen M. “The American Salon: The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial exposition, 1873–1890, vol.1.” PhD diss., City University of New York, 2007. Text pp. xxxiv, 212, 500.

Marter, Joan M. The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Ill. p.x (color).

Burns, Thea and Philippe Saunier. The Art of the Pastel. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2014. Ill. p. 304 (color).

Hirshler, Erica E. William Merritt Chase. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2016. Ill. pp. 49 (color), 78 (color, detail).

Smithgall, Elsa, Erica E. Hirshler, Katherine M. Bourguignon, Giovanna Ginex, and John Davis, William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master. (exh. cat., The Phillips Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, and the Terra Foundation for American Art). With a foreword by D. Frederick Baker. Washington, DC: Phillips Collection; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Text pp. 72, 219 (checklist); ill. p. 145, pl. 48 (color); p. 206 (black & white, appears in installation photograph).

Kennicott, Phillip. "William Merrit Chase, modernist in moderation." The Washington Post (June 5, 2016). Accessed June 20, 2016. Ill. (color).

Goley, Mary Anne. "What William Merritt Chase learned from Europe." Apollo (June 14, 2016). Accessed June 20, 2016. Ill. (color).

Meisler, Stanley. “Restoring the portrait of an artist: How a new exhibition is giving William Merritt Chase his due.” Los Angeles Times (June 23, 2016). Accessed June 24, 2016. Ill. (color).

Green, Dominic. “The Body Eclectic: As artist and teacher, William Merritt Chase showed how American art could take its place within European tradition while breaking new ground for the future.” Art & Antiques 39, no. 7 (Summer 2016): 88–93. Ill. p. 91 (color).

Smithgall, Elsa. “William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master.” American Art Review 28, no. 4 (July–August, 2016): 48–55, 111. Text p. 54. Ill. p. 49 (color).

Dobrzynski, Judith H. “William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master Review: Between Old and New.” The Wall Street Journal (August 10, 2016). Accessed August 10, 2016. Text.

Casey Lauren. “William Merritt Chase.” Le Bon Travel and Culture (October 6, 2016). Accessed October 26, 2016.

Baker, D. Frederick. “Anatomy of an Exhibition: William Merritt Chase.” Antiques and Fine Art Magazine (Winter 2016). Ill. p.125 (color). Ill.

Skwire-Routhier, Jessica. “William Merritt Chase.” Antiques and the Arts Weekly (December 9th, 2016): 1, 30–31. Text p. 31. Ill. p. 31.

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 138, 139; ill. p. 139, detail pp. 140–141 (color).

Carr, Carolyn Kinder. Sara Tyson Hallowell: Pioneer Curator and Art Advisor in the Gilded Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2019. Text pp. 80, 330; ill. p. 81 (color).