Sargent, Chase, Cassatt

Comprising 23 paintings and works on paper, “Sargent, Chase, and Cassatt: Master Paintings from a Private Collection” makes an excellent complement to the sweeping exhibition “Americans in Paris, 1860–1900.” This superb selection of paintings, on view in the Hilles Gallery, illuminates the work of pivotal American artists of the late nineteenth century—specifically Sargent, Chase, and Cassatt—who also figure prominently in “Americans in Paris.”

Several themes emerge in the exhibition, including the collectors’ shared interest in ethereal and enigmatic images as seen in Sargent’s Study for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885–6) and Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s Lady in Lavender (c. 1919–23), the first painting the collectors purchased. Portraits of intelligent and engaged women also figure prominently, and many of the artists—Sargent, Chase, Dewing, Hassam, Prendergast, and Paxton—have close ties to Boston.