This painting was long thought to portray the Norwegian artist Eilif Peterssen, in part because it appears hanging on the wall in a photograph of his studio. The man represented in this painting, however, looks nothing like Peterssen’s self-portrait. Chase and Peterssen both studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich during the 1870s. Chase’s painting may portray a mutual acquaintance or it may simply be a “study head”—an academic exercise in light, shade, and the handling of paint.
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