A remarkable study by a young Charles W. Hawthorne. Charles convinced his parents to allow him to study in New York in 1893 at the Art Students League then at the National Academy of Design. Painted in class in 1894, the subject is a classic female nude starting on a platform with a blurred figure sitting at an easel. One of his teachers would be William Merritt Chase. In 1896, Hawthorne then enrolled in Chase’s summer school at Shinnecock Hills. During the following season, he was acting as Chase’s assistant and in New York he helped him organize the Chase School. This lovely piece is inscribed: To My Friend, V. Trobridge