  About the Artwork
  
  
  William Merritt Chase developed an inventive technique to capture the iridescent and fluid appearance of fish scales. He glazed pigment with transparent varnish to create a thick and luminous surface that glows in the light. This effect captivated critics and collectors during the artist’s lifetime. When the success of his fish paintings began to eclipse that of his landscapes and portraits, the artist joked, “it may be that I will be remembered as a painter of fish.”

The Yield of the Waters (originally titled A Fishmarket in Venice) was one of Chase’s earliest and most ambitious fish paintings. This composition originally included a boy in the top right reaching into the large basket. But after selling the work to a collector, Chase bought it back in 1881 and repainted part of the canvas to remove that figure before selling it again.
  
  
  Title
  The Yield of the Waters
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1878
  
  Artist
  William Merritt Chase
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1849-1916
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 49 × 65 inches (124.5 × 165.1 cm)
  Framed: 57 1/4 × 74 1/8 × 2 7/8 inches (145.4 × 188.3 × 7.3 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  City of Detroit Purchase
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  16.5
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
