American Art Collaborative

“I have just returned from Chaalis [sic], dead tired but happy, having accomplished in the two days that I [stayed] there as much as I would ordinarily do in as many weeks [and] I have brought back a picture which is one of my best.” Walter Gay, 1914, Gay Papers, quoted in Walter Gay: A Retrospective, Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York, 198
This château was once the home of an aristocrat who left it to the French Institute in Paris as a museum with all the art objects and furnishings intact. In 1914, its curator invited Walter Gay to visit and allowed him to paint this opulent chamber. A contemporary critic praised Gay’s paintings, saying that “the personality of the people who live in these chateaux has also been suggested and indicated in an extraordinary manner; we can feel their presence.” (Reynolds, “The Spirit of Empty Rooms: Walter Gay’s Paintings of Interiors,” The Magazine Antiques, March 1990