Provenance:

The Artist.

American Art Association, New York, The Paintings and Other Artistic Property Left by the Late William Merritt Chase, N.A., Sale of May 14-17, 1917, no. 171 (as Portrait Sketch).

Annie Traquair Lang (1885-1918), New York.

American Art Association, New York, Estate of Annie T. Lang, Sale of April 12, 1923, Lot 27 (as Young Woman).

Acquired directly from the above sale.

LeRoy Ireland (1889-1970), New York, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Acquired directly from the above.

Lewis J. Merritt (1848-1929), Pasadena, California.

Gifted to Hulett (Hewlett) Merritt (1872-1956), 1923, Pasadena, California, son of the above.

William E. Woodward, Pasadena, California, inherited from the above.

Christie's, New York, Sale of September 30, 1988, Lot 139.

Private Collection, Washington.

Literature:

American Art Association, Catalogue of The Completed Pictures Studies and Sketches Left by the Late William Merritt Chase, N.A., New York, 1917, no. 171.

Wilbur D. Peat, The Checklist of Known Work, exhibition catalogue, Indianapolis, 1949 (as A Young Woman).

Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase: Portraits in Oil, vol. II, New Haven, 2006, p. 263, no. OP. 557, illustrated.

Lot Note:

According to Ronald G. Pisano, author of the catalogue raisonné on the artist, the present portrait is of Chase's daughter, Helen Velázquez Chase (1895-1965) and was executed shortly after the artist's return from teaching a summer class in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The monochromatic features of this painting may represent Chase's resumption of making monotypes, mainly in black or brown printer's ink, which he had first experimented with as early as the 1880s.

A notation on the verso of the artwork indicates that it was give by Chase to Annie Traquair Lang. Lang was a prized student of Chase, as well as an art teacher, whose portrait of her mentor is now included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. However, the presence of Helen's portrait in the 1917 Chase estate sale makes it more likely that Lang acquired the work at this venue. The portrait, along with several other works by Chase, were included in Lang's 1923 estate auction.