William Merritt Chase
(American, 1849-1916)

"Portrait of Louis Windmuller (1835-1913)", 1902 [sic?]

oil on canvas
signed far left center.
Framed.
51-1/2" x 38", framed 67-1/2" x 55"

Provenance: In theory, City Reform Club, New York, 1901- before 1949; Private collection; Private collection, Texas, 2010-

Exhibited: In theory, Boussod, Valadon and Co., New York, April-May, 1901; Society of American Artists, Twenty-Fourth Annual Exhibition, March 29-May 4, 1902, New York, no. 16; Retrospective of the Work of William Merritt Chase, National Arts Club, New York, January 5-19, 1910, no. 65; William M. Chase Memorial Exhibition, Metropolitan Museum, New York, February 19-March 18, 1917, no. 20.

Literature: D. Frederick Baker confirmed the authenticity of this work in a January 8, 2014 art research report prepared for Sotheby's, New York.

Ronald Pisano, William Merritt Chase, Portraits in Oil , vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale UP, 2006) p. 179, OP. 349; Katharine Metcalf Roof, The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917); "Portrait By W. M. Chase: The Reform Club Honors Its Treasurer with An Oil Painting" The New York Times 9 June 1901: p. 7. Online; Portraits By WM M Chase" The New York Times 9 April 1901: p. 9. Online.

Notes: Louis Windmuller, the sitter of this portrait, exemplifies the American Dream. At eighteen, he immigrated to New York, and over the next sixty years built a lucrative career as a merchant, banker and philanthropist involved in numerous social reform clubs and civic betterment committees, including the eponymous City Reform Club of New York, founded by President Theodore Roosevelt, on whose board Windmuller served for many years as Treasurer. At or around 1901, the Reform Club honored its Treasurer with a portrait by William Merritt Chase, and this is where the story becomes convoluted.

Ronald Pisano's catalogue raisonne of the artist's work states that the portrait of Windmuller was painted by Chase in 1902 and that it was first exhibited in 1902 at the Society of American Artists, Twenty-Fourth Annual Exhibition. D. Frederick Baker in his follow-up art research report prepared for Sotheby's, New York, in 2014 confirms the date stating, "It is dated by the first exhibition in which it appeared, The Society of American Artists, 14th [sic] annual exhibition, 1902, lent by the Reform Club of New York...", but the portrait was first exhibited in the Spring of 1901 at Boussod, Valadon and Co., New York, and a handful of periodicals from The New York Times to the Pittsburgh Daily Post describe it in great detail. The New York Times article titled "Portrait By W. M. Chase: The Reform Club Honors Its Treasurer with An Oil Painting", dated April 9, 1901, suggests that the portrait was indeed commissioned by the Reform Club, and reports that "he is seated in an easy pose, with his hands clasped in front of him and his fingers interlaced. The hands are almost as notable as the face and the painter has bestowed no less care on one than the other." The article continues to speculate on the meaning of palmistry and "general expressions of pervasive bonhomie."

No measurements of this portrait were recorded by Boussod, Valadon or by the reviewers, nor were they recorded in the two subsequent exhibitions at the "Society of American Artists, Catalogue of the Twenty-Fourth Exhibition," 1902 and the "Retrospective of the Work of William Merritt Chase, National Arts Club," 1910. In each of the three exhibits the portrait of Windmuller was lent by the Reform Club. In 1917, it was lent again by the Club for the Metropolitan Museum's "Memorial Exhibition", where the measurements and locations of the signature were recorded in entry no. 20 as 54" x 44" and signed lower right. The portrait was not exhibited and thus not catalogued or measured again until it resurfaced at market in 2010. In the 1949 Centennial Exhibition of Chase's work at the John Herron Art Museum, the painting's current location was unknown; its provenance listed - "formerly Reform Club, New York, N.Y." Additional exhibitions and the Pisano's catalogue raisonne list the Metropolitan Museum's information.

In Frederick Baker's evaluation and report of the Windmuller portrait, he exalts it: "Upon reflection, I believe it to be one of his finest portraits... And it was painted when Chase was at the "top of his game."... I seldom comment on works in such an effusive manner, however, I feel this painting to be extraordinary." Since the portrait does not comply with the 1917 measurements supplied by the Metropolitan Museum, Baker states that the painting must have been cut down to 51-1/4" x 38" and that the signature was removed and that a faint "wimpy" signature was later applied to the far left center, but the painting has not been relined and the original primed white canvas is visible around the stretchers. According to the condition report prepared by Fine Art Conservation Services in San Antonio, Texas, the current "wimpy" signature is "beneath the varnish" and did not indicate an additive pigment under UV and IR lighting. With the exception of some small scattered areas of inpainting, no other restorative work was noted.
None of the senior specialists at Sotheby's or the William Merritt Chase Catalogue Raisonne Project contest this portrait as being the work of Chase; they are stymied over why it does not comply with the 1917 entry supplied by the Metropolitan Museum. What connotes a "wimpy signature"? If the portrait has not been cut down, the signature does not float, is it as equally plausible that the cataloger wrote the wrong measurements and location on the incorrect card? Could the Reform Club have commissioned two near-identical portraits that they deaccessed between 1917 and 1949? Cataloging mistakes abound in early catalogues, perpetuating new ones for scholars and discerning collectors alike to unravel. This extraordinary portrait that belies the man of mettle it portrays recalls the palmistry riddle The New York Times reviewer attributed to Windmuller's interlaced fingers and "pawky" expression.

In overall good estate condition. The painting has been re-stretched and the stretchers are likely newer as the holes in the tacking edges do not fully align with those on the stretchers. There is some abrading along the top edge with a few white vertical cracks (exposing gesso ground) that extend downward from the upper stretcher bar; a few other additional vertical cracks and surface abrasions are scattered throughout. Fine craquelure is throughout with greater concentration in the umber pigments of the sitter's jacket and chair. Light soiling and yellowing of varnish is present. Heavy varnish layers, which fluoresce avocado green under UV light, greatly obscure analysis, though minor inpainted "touch-ups" were detected to dress shirt and sleeve cuff, and possibly to lower right corner. Though nothing overt was readily seen under UV light, the condition report conducted in 2013 by Fine Art Conservation Services noted that under Infra-red (IR) lighting the same area reveals a possible "compositional correction to the lower portion of the chair leg." Signature did not float under UV light, and appears consistently beneath other extant layers of varnish. In situ lighting, the signature appears to have been re-varnished. Frame has scattered nicks, losses and wear to gilding.