A Friendly Call

William Merritt Chase painted A Friendly Call in 1895, depicting his wife Alice chatting with a fashionably dressed visitor in his studio at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. The two women sit in a large, airy room decorated with prints, paintings, and a gilt-framed mirror that offers a surprising reflection of the wall behind the viewer.

The mirror's compositional trick may pay homage to Velázquez's Las Meninas, which Chase greatly admired. The visitor still wears her hat and gloves, holding a parasol, suggesting she's just dropped by. Warm afternoon light fills the space, handled with the loose brushwork that earned Chase the label "American Impressionist."

The painting won the Shaw Fund prize of $1,500 at the Society of American Artists exhibition in 1895. It later passed through the Chester Dale collection before being gifted to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1943.