AI Helps Bring Back Lost Details in a William Merritt Chase Painting

Conservators have recovered lost details in William Merritt Chase's A Comfortable Corner, a painting from around 1888, with help from artificial intelligence (AI), the computer systems that combine and compare images. The Art Newspaper reported the work on 13 November 2026.

The painting belongs to the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York. It shows a woman reclining in a crowded, richly furnished room. She wears a deep blue kimono, a loose Japanese robe, and holds an uchiwa, a flat, round hand fan.

The picture had been changed by earlier repairs. It was restored at least twice, including a major restoration in the 1960s. Those earlier interventions included a heavy, burlap-like lining glued to the back for support, retouching, patchy inpainting (paint used to fill in damaged areas), and varnishes that were applied unevenly.

A black-and-white photograph, believed to have been taken before the 1960s work, showed more of the composition than the painting does today. The painting appears to have been made smaller in that restoration. Conservators think this may have been to fit a new stretcher, the wooden frame a canvas is stretched over, or because damaged edges were folded over the back.

The older photograph revealed several lost details. These include a curl of hair beneath the sitter's ear, parts of a decorative screen that have faded or disappeared, and delicate passages that were later covered with heavier marks. Conservators also found pentimenti, the term for earlier positions an artist painted and then covered over. These were made by Chase himself, and they did not show up in the photograph.

To guide the work, AI was used to join the historical photograph with a colour image of the painting. The result was a composite, a single blended picture showing what the work may have looked like. The Parrish Art Museum worked on the restoration with conservator Suzanne Siano and her team at Modern Art Conservation.

Visitors will be able to see the restored painting from 14 November 2026 to 21 March 2027. It is part of the museum's exhibition William Merritt Chase and Walter Granville-Smith: American Impressionists of the East End. The museum holds a large body of Chase's work, along with archive material donated by the artist's family, so the show draws on that collection.

Two events are planned for 21 November. A member opening, at 3:30 pm, covers the Chase and Granville-Smith show and the work of Janet Cardiff. A panel on the exhibition, titled William Merritt Chase and Walter Granville-Smith: American Impressionists of the East End, follows at 4 pm.

For anyone planning a trip to the East End of Long Island, the timing is simple. The painting will be on the walls from mid-November, and the restoration is the reason the picture looks different from the versions visitors may have seen before.