Telling the New York Tribune that the stress of retail had left William with a "shattered constitution", Louis resigned from his own position in 1886.

Throughout the 1890s and early 1910s, he was an executive member of the Anti-Imperialist League and the Gold Democrats Party,[1] as well as an advocate for free trade,[8] often publishing op eds on the subject.

[13] Paintings from the Ehrich Galleries were sometimes donated to or purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or became part of private collections.

Ownership passed to his sons, Harold and Walter Ehrich, who donated some of its holdings to the Yale University Art Gallery in memory of their father Louis.

[15] Under Harold and Walter's leadership, the galleries began to incorporate a greater number of modern and American paintings in the 1920s and 1930s.

[1] In addition to Harold and Walter, who ran Ehrich Galleries after Louis's death, they had a daughter named Leah.