Portrait of a Boy in Van Dyck Costume

William Merritt Chase's 1875 portrait of a boy in Van Dyck costume represents an early work from his Munich training period, before he returned to New York and became a central figure in American Impressionism. Depicting a child in period costume — specifically the lace collar and doublet associated with Van Dyck's seventeenth-century sitters — was both a display of historical awareness and an excuse for virtuoso handling of fabric and texture. Chase was studying in Munich under Karl von Piloty, whose emphasis on rich historical costume painting is visible in this subject. The Reading Public Museum in Pennsylvania holds this as evidence of his formation before his mature American career.

Chase's Munich training is visible in the warm, dark tonality and the emphasis on textural virtuosity — the lace collar and velvet doublet rendered with the kind of handling that Munich's followers of Velázquez prized. The boy's face is modeled carefully against the elaborate costume. The painting demonstrates his early command of the loaded brush.