Back of a Nude (Study of Flesh Color and Gold) by William Merritt Chase

Back of a Nude (Study of Flesh Color and Gold) - William Merritt Chase - Canvas Wall Art

At a Glance

Back of a Nude (Study of Flesh Color and Gold) - William Merritt Chase - Canvas Wall Art suits both traditional and modern interiors. As a portrait oil painting, it works as a standalone focal point or as part of an entryway gallery wall, and unlike a print it is genuinely hand painted in oils.

Composition & Subject

circa 1888
pastel on paper
Private collection.

William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), one of New York’s most prominent artists in the 1880s, surpassed all others in the use of pastel. In his adept hands, pastel’s chalky matter rivaled the authority of oil paint, though with greater receptivity to light and an unmatched velvety texture. Chase produced more than one hundred pastels in the 1880s, increasing the visibility of the medium in exhibitions and promoting the technique with forward-looking artists of the day.

The pastel has borne more than one title since its making. The Gallery has reinstated Study of Flesh Color and Gold, which was used when the pastel was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1897 and is reminiscent of titles favored by James McNeill Whistler. Consider, for example, Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold or his Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Black. Chase was an exuberant admirer of Whistler’s work and sought out his acquaintance while on a trip to London in 1885. By all accounts the two men got along famously, but Chase eventually tired of the older artist’s quarrelsome behavior. Nonetheless, he maintained respect for Whistler’s work and continued to laud his accomplishments.

In Study of Flesh Color and Gold, Chase applied the pastel relatively densely and with exceptional vigor, maneuvering the colored crayon as one would a brush loaded with oil paint. In keeping with the contemporary vogue for Japonisme, Chase (like Whistler) adopted Japanese props. He tilted the picture plane and cropped the composition, devices common to Japanese prints. Like Kitagawa Utamaro, whose eighteenth-century prints were coveted by avant-garde artists at the time, Chase focused on the figure’s bare back. But he heightened the effect—to the point of its being somewhat startling—by placing the model in the extreme forefront of the composition, adding a modern sensibility to a traditional Japanese subject.

Margaret and Raymond Horowitz began acquiring art in the mid-1960s, assembling one of the finest collections of American impressionist and realist works in private hands, a selection of which was the subject of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 1999. In addition to this sumptuous pastel by Chase, the Gallery has been the beneficiary of other gifts from the Horowitz collection, including a superb painting from 1891 by Childe Hassam, Poppies, Isles of Shoals

Every hand painted oil painting in this figurative series is finished on artist-grade canvas and checked against the original before it leaves the studio.

Materials & Craftsmanship

Materials matter for refined wall decor. That is why this piece is built on artist-grade canvas with lightfast oil colors, applied by hand rather than output from a printer, and sealed for long-term display.

What Is Included

• Genuine hand painted oil painting on premium artist canvas; no printing or digital imaging is used.
• Edges include an additional 2-inch blank allowance, ideal for gallery wrapping or framing.
• No middlemen — we ship directly to you worldwide.
• Available canvas sizes for this hand painted oil painting: 20 X 24 in, 24 X 36 in, 30 X 40 in, 36 X 48 in, 48 X 72 in.
• Choose from standard sizes or request a custom dimension to fit your wall.
• Choose from DHL, UPS, FedEx, USPS and other competitively priced carriers.
• No-cost gallery stretching on wood bars, plus optional made-to-order framing.
• Before dispatch we email a digital proof so you can approve the finished canvas.

Styling & Placement

Style it over a fireplace, behind a reading chair, or along a staircase. Wherever it goes, this refined oil painting wall decor adds the layered color that only a hand painted canvas provides.

Delivery, Sizes & Guarantee

Browse our William Merritt Chase Paintings selection for related figurative canvases, or commission this figurative image in a custom size. Every order is a hand painted oil painting, never a printed poster.