William Merritt Chase was an American Impressionist and teacher who traveled widely in Europe He painted Open Air Breakfast in 1888. In this picture, he paints some children relaxing and playing in a verdant and floral garden setting. The figures of the children and the broad white of the hammock are reminiscent of Édouard Manet while the rest of the garden apply a divisionist Impressionism similar to the garden scenes of domestic life done by Monet.
William Merritt Chase’s Open Air Breakfast is in the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.