Self-Portrait circa 1912

The 1913 self-portrait is one of seven known and documented self-portraits made between the 1908 Uffizi painting and one painted in 1916, the year of his death. Self-Portrait was commissioned by a group of Southampton citizens to commemorate the renowned artist and teacher and his close ties to the Village and was donated to the Rogers Memorial Library there, where it remained on view for many years. In 2004 the library board elected to sell the painting at a public auction and the philanthropist Louis Bacon, who had strong ties to the East End of Long Island, came forward to ensure that the work remained a legacy to the region.

Chase poses himself here as the quintessential artist but one without the standard trappings of palette, easel, and studio backdrop. He is not an artist at work but an artist in retrospection; only the brushy facture of his beard and gleaming white cravat hint at the genteel bohemian's undiminished ardor for painting.

In the deaced prior to 1914, Chase spent summers teaching in many European cities, including London, Bruges, Antwerp, and Venice. A summer stint in Florence in 1907 proved so agreeable that he continues to hold classes there though 1911. In 1910 he purchased the Villa Silli on the Via Cosimo Il Vecchio in the Careggi section of Florence, a property ha had leased during previous summers. The villa was surrounded by a magnificent garden with a large oleander bush that Chase often painted.

The 1907 class was organized by the young artist Walter Pach, who had previously studied abroad with Chase in the summers of 1903 and 1904. The small group of forty students sailed from Boston, landed in Naples, and visited Rome and Pompeii before arriving in Florence to meet their teacher, who was in fact making his first visit to the city. Following the usual pattern Chase led classes and conducted criticisms. Visits to the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace afforded ample opportunity for sketching and Pach, who would go on to become a noted writer and critic, offered lectured on the art and architecture of Florence.

In recognition of his bond with the city, the Uffizi invited Chase to paint a self-portrait for a distinct collection of artists' self- portraits presented within the larger holdings of the museum. This compilation was initiated by the noted sixteenth- century artist biographer Giorgio Vasari. "Chase was only the third American, after John Singer Sargent, and G.P.A. Healy, to be so honored."