William Earl Dodge, Jr. [d. 1903], New York;[1] his wife, Mrs. William Earl Dodge, Jr. [d. 1909], New York; her grandson, William Earl Dodge IV [d. 1927], New York;[2] his wife, Ella Lynch Dodge [d. 1964], New York; her stepdaughter, Diana Dodge Ryan, Newport;[3] given in 1965 to the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island; purchased 9 December 1965 by NGA. [1] William Earl Dodge, Jr., was the son of a prominent New York merchant. His brother, David Stuart Dodge, was a missionary and a founder of Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (present-day American University of Beirut), where he was the first professor of modern languages. D. S. Dodge accompanied Church on his travels in Syria and the Holy Land in 1868; see David C. Huntington, _The Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church: Vision of an American Era_, New York, 1966: 93, and John Davis, "Frederic Church's 'Sacred Geography.'" _Smithsonian Studies in American Art_ 1 (Spring 1987): 81. Although it is reasonable to assume that D. S. Dodge was instrumental in arranging the commission of _Morning in the Tropics_, there is no evidence documenting his role. [2] William Earl Dodge IV was the son of William Earl Dodge III, who died in 1884. [3] William Earl Dodge IV bequeathed the painting to his daughter, Diana Dodge (later Ryan), but gave his second wife, Ella Lynch Dodge, a life interest. Ryan (letter of 3 March 1966 in NGA curatorial files) saw the painting twice: in 1921, when it was hanging in the dining room of her father's yacht; and then next "in early 1965," a few months after her stepmother's death in October 1964.