Boss Tweed is by 1871 a member…

William Merritt Chase, now in his early thirties, is known for his portraits and figure studies, his still lifes of dead fish, and his studio interiors, e.g., In the Studio (1880-83; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York).

Chase had left Indiana in his early twenties to study abroad, rejoicing, “My God, I'd rather go to Europe than go to heaven!”

He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City and under Karl von Piloty for six years in Munich.

He had worked for a time in the grays and browns of the Munich school, but in the 1880s he takes up the lighter palette now popular in Paris.

Chase teaches at the Art Students League of New York.

William Merritt Chase paints A Friendly Call (1895; Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art), a scene in his own studio at his summer home near Shinnecock, Long Island.

A new vogue for Oriental aesthetics accounts for the bamboo chair, reed floor mats, and silk wall hangings.

Such elegance transforms a functional workroom into a private exhibition gallery.

The "art for art's sake" movement has made possible this recent rise in the social status of painters.

The painter's wife, Alice Gerson Chase, greets an unidentified caller.

According to the rigid social etiquette of the 1890s, the hostess has not yet asked—or may never permit—her guest to relax, put down her parasol, and remove her gloves, hat, and veil.

The ladies lean symmetrically toward each other and the center of the geometric composition with its long, low banquette and carefully arranged cushions and framed pictures.

Chase, as an impressionist, uses the large mirror to capture a soft-focus reflection of the sunlit hallway and stair leading to his airy studio.

The easygoing painter, now forty-six, has encouraged so many students in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and at his Long Island summer studio that he boasts, "I believe I am the father of more art children than any other teacher."

Chase cultivates multiple personae: sophisticated cosmopolitan, devoted family man, and esteemed teacher.

Chase had married Alice Gerson in 1887 and together they will raise eight children during Chase's most energetic artistic period.

His eldest daughters, Alice Dieudonnee Chase and Dorothy Bremond Chase, often model for their father.