“The House Maid” by William McGregor Paxton
“The House Maid” by William McGregor Paxton depicts a woman engrossed in a book and standing behind a table on which a group of still-life objects is displayed. The woman is dressed in a housemaid’s uniform and holds a feather duster under her arm.
The still-life objects include an open stationery box on the left and various East Asian ceramic works. The painting was created in Boston, and the objects echo New England’s long history of trade with Asia.
Arranged on the table are a white Chinese lidded jar, a dark polished vessel, a porcelain Chinese figure, and a Qing dynasty blue-and-white porcelain pot.
The background wall is featureless other than Paxton’s name and the painting’s date, prominently featured in the top left corner.
The composition of Asian objects and a young attractive woman was a typical motif in the early-1900s American painting.
Reading is likewise a familiar subject at that period of American art. Paxton, however, chose to depict a housemaid rather than the usual lady of leisure.
Paxton was an admirer of Johannes Vermeer’s work and similarly gravitated to indoor scenes, typically featuring women engaged in household duties, recalling Dutch painters’ domestic subjects.
The composition and muted palette, the rendered textures and arrangement, and sense of quiet concentration all have parallels in Vermeer’s works of domestic scenes with women.
Boston School
The Boston School was a group of Boston-based painters active in the early 1900s. Often classified as American Impressionists, they had their own regional style.
They combined Impressionism with respect for the traditions of Western art history. Their preferred subject matter was portraits, picturesque landscapes, and young women posing in well-appointed interiors.
William McGregor Paxton
William McGregor Paxton (1869 – 1941) was an American painter who embraced the Boston School paradigm and was a co-founder of The Guild of Boston Artists.
Paxton is known for his portraits, including those of two presidents, and interior scenes with women, including his wife.
“The House Maid” by William McGregor Paxton
- Title: The House Maid
- Artist: William McGregor Paxton
- Year: 1910
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions 76.5 × 64 cm (30 1/8 × 25 3/16 in.)
- Category: American Artist
- Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
William McGregor Paxton
- Name: William McGregor Paxton
- Born: 1869, Baltimore, Maryland
- Died: 1941, Newton, Massachusetts
- Nationality: American
- Notable works:
- The House Maid
- The Figurine
William McGregor Paxton
A Virtual Tour of the National Gallery of Art
- “Ginevra de’ Benci” by Leonardo da Vinci
- “A Young Girl Reading” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
- “Small Cowper Madonna” by Raphael
- “The Alba Madonna” by Raphael
- “Nude on a Divan” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “Nude on a Blue Cushion” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “Saint Jerome” by El Greco
- “The Houses of Parliament, Sunset” by Claude Monet (National Gallery of Art, DC)
- “Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)” by Winslow Homer
- “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
- Adrienne (Woman with Bangs) by Amedeo Modigliani
- “Watson and the Shark” by John Singleton Copley
- “The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries” by Jacques-Louis David
- “The Boating Party” by Mary Cassatt
- “Interior of the Pantheon, Rome” by Giovanni Paolo Panini
- Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in “Chilpéric” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- “Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- “A Dutch Courtyard” by Pieter de Hooch
- “The Mother and Sister of the Artist” by Berthe Morisot
- “New York” by George Bellows
- Self-Portrait by John Singleton Copley
- “Self-Portrait” by Benjamin West
- “Symphony in White, No. 1″ by James Abbott McNeill Whistler
- A Prince of Saxony by Lucas Cranach, the Elder
“The House Maid” by William McGregor Paxton
- A Princess of Saxony by Lucas Cranach, the Elder
- “Skiffs on the Yerres” by Gustave Caillebotte
- “The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna” by Raphael
- “The Equatorial Jungle” by Henri Rousseau
- Masterpieces of the National Gallery of Art
- “Venus and Adonis” by Titian
- “Waterloo Bridge” by Claude Monet
- “Christ at the Sea of Galilee” by Circle of Tintoretto
- “Both Members of This Club” by George Bellows
- “Club Night” by George Bellows
- “Farmhouse in Provence” by Vincent van Gogh
- “Girl in White” by Vincent van Gogh
- “Street in Venice” by John Singer Sargent
- “Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son” by Claude Monet
- “A Lady Writing a Letter” by Johannes Vermeer
- “Tale of Creation” – “Genesis II” by Franz Marc
“The House Maid” by William McGregor Paxton
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“Life is short; art is long.”
– Ancient Greek Proverb
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Photo Credit: 1)William McGregor Paxton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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