Composition

The Terra Foundation website comments on the similarity of pose to Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell [YMSM 242].

'While Whistler also sometimes portrayed Maud informally in domestic settings, seemingly unposed, Maud on a Stairway is unusual in its spontaneity and its snapshot-like suggestion of interrupted activity. It relates, however, to the artist’s interest at the time in portraying the figure in complex gestural motion, and specifically to the pose of Lady Archibald Campbell in Whistler’s large oil portrait painted beginning in 1882 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Such poses emphasize the form-hugging effect of contemporary fashion while capturing the sense of the ephemeral and the transient that marks Whistler’s works as emphatically modern.' 1

It is also possible that the pose is related to that of Janey Sevilla Campbell (Lady Archibald Campbell) (ca 1846-d.1923) in The Grey Lady: Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell [YMSM 241], described by the sitter as 'a masterpiece of drawing, giving the impression of movement. I was descending the steps of a stair.' 2

Technique

Maud's fashionable skirt was caught up in a bustle, in purple tints over pink, contrasting with the greenish tones of the beackground. White was used in the purple of her hat to set it off from her hair: and there are purplish browns in the greys of her arm. The colour is a cool harmony of green and grey, pink and purple.

Some indecision is seen in the arm, which had been higher, and in the curves of the legs, but clarity in the gathering of the skirt, and clear wedge-shaped brushstrokes, where Whistler used his brush like a pen. A variety of brushwork is apparent- thin washes roughly scrubbed vertically down the background, dry-brushed effects and spiky brush-strokes on the dress, the point of the brush used to model her alert, bright-eyed face.

Conservation History

The paper is of medium weight, slightly textured, and darkened at the edges. A tear at bottom right, starting 55 mm in from the corner, is 50mm long , extending just to the rug at the bottom of the stairs, but it does not affect the painting.