The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Oil painting divided horizontally with a blue sea stretching across the horizon. Below, muted yellow and green strokes convey grass on a dusty grey-brown landscape with two lines of bare ground where two wheels have cut through arcing up from the lower left corner. Clusters of fluffy, peach-tinged, white clouds float across the blue sky in the upper half.

The Old Road to the Sea

c. 1893

William Merritt Chase

(American, 1849–1916)
America
oil on canvas
Framed: 134.3 x 159.7 x 10.8 cm (52 7/8 x 62 7/8 x 4 1/4 in.); Unframed: 101.5 x 127 cm (39 15/16 x 50 in.); Former: 118.5 x 144 x 5.5 cm (46 5/8 x 56 11/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon 1938.333
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Chase loved big dogs, variously owning a greyhound, a borzoi, and an Irish wolfhound.

Description

One of the most influential of the American Impressionists, William Merritt Chase established his own summer school at Shinnecock, on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York. Attracted to the low-lying dunes and beaches, Chase and his students were among the first American artists to pursue open-air painting. With its varied brushwork and warm colors, this painting is among the finest works Chase produced at Shinnecock. The panoramic scene glows with the light of a summer day. The Chase school at Shinnecock, active from 1891-1902, was instrumental in expanding the influence of Impressionism in the United States.
  • Mr. W. H. Fuller, purchase 1896; Henry White Cannon, New York.
  • Francis, Henry S. “‘Shinnecock Hills’ by William M. Chase.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 2 (February 1939): 19–20. Mentioned: p. 19-20 www.jstor.org
    Francis, Henry S. “Portraits by Whistler and Chase.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 52, no. 1 (January 1965): 19–23. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 22 www.jstor.org
  • Cleveland Collects American Art of the Gilded Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 23-May 18, 2003).
    Southampton, N.Y., Parrish Art Museum, William Merritt Chase 1849-1916: A Retrospective Exhibition (1957), no. 52.
    The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).
  • {{cite web|title=The Old Road to the Sea|url=false|author=William Merritt Chase|year=c. 1893|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1938.333