The Wounded Poacher (Primary Title)
The Veteran (Alternate Title)
William Merritt Chase, American, 1849 - 1916 (Artist)
The craggy, weather-beaten face of a middle-aged man peers out of the murky background of this canvas. Beneath a stark, white head bandage, his gaze is direct and forceful, his manner and pose confrontational. The man’s expertly foreshortened hands maintain a tight grip on a highly illusionistic white clay pipe thrust into the viewer’s space like the barrel of a pistol – an impression shaped by the painting’s various titles conflating hunter with soldier. The Wounded Poacher, later known as The Veteran, is a consummate example of William Merritt Chase’s Munich period. Fresh from his studies at the Munich Royal Academy, Chase, who had trained at New York’s National Academy of Design from 1869 to 1872 before traveling to Germany, quickly established himself as a rising American star. The Wounded Poacher contains all the hallmarks of the progressive Munich school, from its dusky palette and alla prima (direct) painting technique to its moody subject. The picture marked the artist’s debut in the New York art world of 1878 and helped to secure Chase’s early reputation as “an older man and a riper artist…destined to produce great works.”
Signed, inscribed, and dated upper left: W. M. Chase/ München/1878
Gift of James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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