Gathering Autumn Flowers

1894/1895

William Merritt Chase

Artist, American, 1849 - 1916

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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

    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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