Edgar Melville Ward

Edgar Melville Ward moved to France to study at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts and stayed in Paris for six years, spending summers in Brittany. The French government admired his work enough to purchase a painting on behalf of the nation. In 1883, Ward returned to New York, where he taught painting and directed the National Academy of Design. (Luhrs, ed., American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. II, 1985)