![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Mr-CHase.jpg\")
<\/a>Whistler befriended Chase, but their association ended after Chase’s’s portrait of him. Like Velasquez\u2019s of Innocent X\u00a0, it was apparently troppo vero<\/em>.<\/p>\n[easy-image-collage id=2396]<\/p>\n
Chase’s wife, daughters and female students often posed for him. The painting of his daughters playing ringtoss compares unfavorably to Sargents\u2019s brooding The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit<\/em>, but hey, the Indian yellows and phthalo blues in Chase’s\u00a0portrait of Dora Wheeler are the definition of lush, Around 4pm it was time to sit and pulled out my sketchbook. I plonked myself on the\u00a0comfortable couch in front of Washington and sketched the answer to one of the first jokes I ever heard (What color was George Washington\u2019s white horse?).\u00a0<\/em>Fell into drawing for, it turned out, over an hour. When a voice spoke over my shoulder I jumped. It was the guard going off his shift, wanting to see what I\u2019d been doing. He approved. I was not so happy. Now it was 6pm and I was hungry. Thought I\u2019d have dinner in the atrium. Walked through the doors and into music blasting at ear bleed levels \u2013 Mustang Sally, Lady Marmelade, 24K Magic. What the what? It was first Friday and a dance party for patrons, mostly middle-aged and older, was in full swing. Booty\u2019s were primly shaking and uncoordinated white people awkwardly danced. I fled. I was going to take my chances on the mean streets when a docent assured me the museum’s upscale restaurant\u00a0was out of earshot.<\/p>\n All righty. Seated by the elegant hostess who wore discreet black sequins, wide leg velvet cargo pants, and a marvelous slouch chapeau. I ordered the seared duck, only later aware of the irony of this choice in a museum that was featuring a retrospective of the illustrator of\u00a0Make Way For Duckings<\/em>. It was\u2026chewy, but so is jerky and I was hungry.<\/p>\n No difficulty summoning an Uber. Back in the hotel, I watched the weather channel and fell asleep wondering whether a blizzard in\u00a0Boston is anything like what Laura Ingalls Wilder described.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PART TWO After lunch, I threw myself into the arms of W. M. Chase. The first room was multiple views of his studio, filled with luxury textiles, object d\u2019art, the various exotica he used for props, and the women he liked to paint. His\u00a0self-portrait – with rumpled hair, and a truly\u00a0luxuriant mustache – has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[236,137],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-2017","8":"category-short-trips","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/alice-1-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-Cd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2405,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\u00a0and his nudes are as tempting as Bourgereau\u2019s.<\/a>This exhibition has many paintings\u00a0of his studio, his students and his family, and\u00a0his focus on the pleasures of daily life endeared him\u00a0to me.<\/p>\n<\/a>Upstairs to cruise the Sargents. I fervently hope his life gave him as much happiness as his work has given me. Paused in front of a oil study of a model he used for multiple works in Boston. Stood and sketched quickly. This time, I was happier.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n