Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877–1915

William Merritt Chase (American, 1849–1916)
Ring Toss, 1896
Oil on canvas; 40 3/8 x 35 1/8 in. (102.6 x 89.2 cm)
Marie and Hugh Halff

Following a spring 1896 visit with his wife and two eldest daughters to Madrid, where he copied Velázquez's Las Meninas (1656) at the Prado, Chase returned to Shinnecock, Long Island, in June to teach. It was possibly in response to Velázquez's magnum opus that he painted Ring Toss, portraying three of his daughters in his studio engaged in the popular parlor game. Nine-year-old Alice (Cosy) toes a chalked line on the polished hardwood floor; Koto Albertine crouches to retrieve a ring from under a rolling easel; and the youngest child, probably Dorothy, waits her turn. The informal composition, compressed space, sketchlike rendering, and dispersed focus reveal Chase's appreciation of candid and trifling narrative and of the suitability of these stylistic devices to "rendering the passing incident of child life," according to a newspaper critic of the time.