Pink Azalea—Chinese Vase
1880–90 (?)
Medium
Oil on wood
Dimensions
23 1/2 x 16 9/16 in. (59.7 x 42.1 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. J. Augustus Barnard, 1979
Accession Number
1979.490.5
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Merritt Chase’s *Pink Azalea—Chinese Vase* captures a delicate still-life arrangement with the quiet elegance that defined much of his work in the 1880s and 1890s. An influential American Impressionist, Chase frequently turned to floral subjects, using them to explore the interplay of light, color, and texture. Here, the vivid pink blooms of the azalea contrast with the ornate Chinese porcelain, reflecting the late-nineteenth-century American fascination with Asian decorative arts and the refined domestic interiors of the Gilded Age. Painted in oil on a smooth wood panel, the work all...
About the Artist
William Merritt Chase
Prolific painter of portraits, interiors, still lifes and landscapes, famed for establishing the fresh colour and bravura technique used in much early 20th-century American painting. He was considered the most important American teacher of his time; after teaching at the Art Students League of NY he formed the Chase School of Art in 1896. Comment on works: genre, Portraits