Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Chase, Marian Emma
CHASE, MARIAN EMMA (1844–1905), water-colour painter, born on 18 April 1844 at 62 Upper Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, London, was the second of the three daughters of John Chase (1810-1879) by his second wife Georgiana Ann Harris. Miss Chase was educated at a private school at Ham, near Richmond. Her father, a member of the New Water Colour Society (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours), taught her perspective and water-colour painting; Margaret Gillies [q. v.] gave her instruction in drawing from the life; and she enjoyed the friendship and advice of Henry Warren, president of the New Water Colour Society, E. H. Wehnert [q. v.], Henry Tidey [q. v.], and other artists. In early life she devoted a good deal of time to illuminating, but it was as a painter in water-colour of flowers, fruit, and still-life that she made her mark, by virtue of her truthful colouring and delicate treatment. She painted in the same medium interiors, a few landscapes, and, towards the close of her life, studies of flower-gardens; in her figure subjects she was less successful. She also occasionally worked in oil. She exhibited from 1866 to 1905 at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute, the Dudley Gallery, the Grosvenor Gallery, the International Exhibition of 1871 and various provincial, colonial, and foreign exhibitions. On 22 March 1875 she was elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours (now the Royal Institute), and in 1879 she became a full member. In 1888 the Royal Botanical Society awarded her a silver medal. Save for a tour abroad with her father about 1876, Miss Chase, who resided in later life at Brondesbury, worked entirely in England. She died from heart-failure after an operation on 15 March 1905, and was buried in St. Pancras Cemetery, Finchley.
At the Bethnal Green Museum is a water-colour drawing, 'Wild Flowers,' by her. Miss M. C. Matthison of Temple Fortune House has a collection of her works, as well as a pastel portrait of her as a child, and a miniature portrait painted shortly before her death by Miss Luie Chadwick.
[Information kindly supplied by Miss M. C. Matthison; E. C. Clayton, English Female Artists, ii. 183-5; Men and Women of the Time, 1899; Graves, Dictionary of Artists; Cat. Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (with some reproductions); Cat. Water Colours, Victoria and Albert Museum; W. S. Sparrow, Women Painters of the World, 1905, p. 130 (reproduction); Standard, 18 April 1878; Queen, 15 Feb. 1890 (portrait); St. John's Wood, Kilburn and Hampstead Advertiser, 29 Aug. 1901 and 23 March 1905 (portrait).]