Portrait of My Daughter Alice

Chase painted his children frequently, and these portraits are among his most personal works. Alice Chase appears here in the full bloom of childhood, her face and pose rendered with the affectionate attention of a father who is also a master portraitist. Chase's children were his favorite models — he painted them in the studio, at the dinner table, on the beach at Shinnecock — and these domestic scenes gave him the freedom to experiment with brushwork and color without the pressures of commissioned portraiture.

Chase's children's portraits belong to a tradition that includes Velazquez's royal children, Renoir's family groups, and Cassatt's mother-and-child compositions. What distinguishes Chase is the American directness: no sentimentality, no excessive decoration, just a child observed with love and painted with skill.

This portrait captures Chase at his most relaxed and most genuine. The love between artist and subject is visible in every brushstroke, and the result is one of the warmest American portraits of the 19th century.