A white-skinned fish, sliced open along its belly, lies across a porcelain plate next to a brass-colored vessel in this nearly square still-life painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. The objects are lit from our left, and the earth-brown background is in deep shadow. At the center of the composition, the fish’s head and tail flop off the white plate, which is painted with orange and blue flowers. Four smaller, silvery fish lie in two pairs on the brown, possibly wood tabletop. One pair is near the lower right corner of the canvas, and the other is to the left of the white fish’s gaping mouth. Touches of red on the tabletop are reflected in the brass pot, which stands on short legs and has two shallow handles at the upper rim. A heavily painted area on the pot could be an ornament, like a lion’s head in relief, but details are difficult to make out. The artist signed the work in wide, sprawling letters in the lower left corner, “WM M. Chase.”
Read the visual description

A white-skinned fish, sliced open along its belly, lies across a porcelain plate next to a brass-colored vessel in this nearly square still-life painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. The objects are lit from our left, and the earth-brown background is in deep shadow. At the center of the composition, the fish’s head and tail flop off the white plate, which is painted with orange and blue flowers. Four smaller, silvery fish lie in two pairs on the brown, possibly wood tabletop. One pair is near the lower right corner of the canvas, and the other is to the left of the white fish’s gaping mouth. Touches of red on the tabletop are reflected in the brass pot, which stands on short legs and has two shallow handles at the upper rim. A heavily painted area on the pot could be an ornament, like a lion’s head in relief, but details are difficult to make out. The artist signed the work in wide, sprawling letters in the lower left corner, “WM M. Chase.”

National Gallery of Art · Painting

An English Cod

William Merritt Chase

Date
1904
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 91.76 × 101.92 cm (36 1/8 × 40 1/8 in.) framed: 47 1/2 x 51 7/8 x 5 in. (120.65 x 131.76 x 12.7 cm)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
2014.136.5
Credit line
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund, 1905)
Time span
1901 to 1925
Department
CAB

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • fish
  • animal
  • Impressionist
  • Acquired after publication of American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I [A-L]
  • Cod
Provenance

Purchased 1905 from the artist through the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Inscription

lower left: WM M. CHASE

NGA object ID 195635. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.