His summer trips to Europe began in 1881, when he went to Paris and Madrid, making in the latter city a copy of the “Tapestry Weavers.” The next year he was again in Spain with Blum and Vinton. At that time Madrid was a great place for brass, pictures, stuffs, curios, and Chase bought without stint. He needed materials for still-life pictures and, besides, the big Tenth Street studio absorbed no end of furnishings. The summer of 1883 found him in Holland, living at Zandvoort with Blum, and painting Blum in a large garden-picture called “The Tiff.” In 1885 he went to see Whistler in London. They started out on terms of mutual admiration, painted each other’s portraits, travelled in Holland together, but finally ended up by quarrelling. The Whistler portrait of Chase has disappeared, or at least its whereabouts, if it still exists, is unknown; but the Chase portrait of Whistler is extant and now in the Metropolitan Museum. Whistler declared it “a monstrous lampoon,” and he was about right in saying so. It is Whistler the _poseur_, not the real man. Certain eccentricities or personal peculiarities were so extravagantly presented that the characterization became little less than caricature. In 1886 Chase was married to Miss Gerson and for a few years the European trips were abandoned. He was still teaching in the League, was president of the Society of American Artists, and was holding exhibitions of his work at the Boston Art Club and elsewhere. He began doing some open-air pastels in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. A small club called the “Painters in Pastel” had been organized in New York with Blum as president, and Chase, Beckwith, La Farge, Twachtman, Weir, Wiles as members. Chase became interested in the gay color-possibilities of the medium and proceeded to apply it to park scenes with children, flowers, water, and trees. Years before, Alfred Stevens had told him that his Munich scheme of light was too dark and Chase immediately began to lighten it. Perhaps the medium of pastel finally drove out the last vestige of Munich, for certainly his open-air pictures, without suggesting _pointillisme_ or impressionism or optical mixture of any kind, took on very light and brilliant colorings. They were charming expositions of color and sunlight, and were regarded at the time as something of a departure.