The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Maud on a stairway dates from about 1883.

Maud on a stairway, Terra Foundation for American Art

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 882). The entry has been revised and updated.

Images

Subject

Site

Maud on a stairway, Terra Foundation for American Art

Whistler's house at 13 Tite Street, Chelsea, London.

Sitter

Maud on a stairway, Terra Foundation for American Art

Maud Franklin (1857-1939).

Technique

Composition

Maud on a stairway, Terra Foundation for American Art

Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell, Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Terra Foundation website comments on the similarity of pose to Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell y242.

'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 y241, 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 on a stairway, Terra Foundation for American Art

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.

History

Provenance

• 1883/1888: acquired by Maud Franklin (1857-1939), who married, first, John Albro Little (d. 1904), and secondly Richard Harold Scott Abbott (1875-1948);
• 1936/1941: either given to her daughter Ione Franklin Tyler (1877-1951) (nee Forbes) or bequeathed to her son Richard Abbott (d. 1948);
• 1948: inherited by Ione Tyler's son Richard Tyler (d. 1980), San Francisco;
• 1980: bequeathed to his wife, Adelle K. Tyler (nee Barnecutt) (d. 1983);
• 1983: after her death, passed by family descent to a private collection;
• 1986: sold though Knoedler-Modarco S.A., New York, to Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996);
• 1996: Daniel J. Terra Collection, Chicago, Illinois;
• 1999: Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1999;
• 2004: The Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago closed; The Terra Foundation for American Art placed part of the collection, including the works on paper, on long-term loan to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 882) as 'Maud on a stairway'.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Atkinson, D. Scott et al., A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, edited by Terry A. Neff, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987, pl. T-37, p. 146.
• An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1988.
• Regard sur James Abbott McNeill Whistler (James Abbott McNeill Whistler at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, 1994.
• Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915 (Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865-1915), Musée d'Art Américain, Giverny, France, 1996.
• A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2002-2003.
• Modern Harmonies: Whistler Reflects on his Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2003.
• Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, [Gallery 163], The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2005.
• Lecomte, Vanessa, editor, Portrait of a Lady : peinture et photographies américains, Musée d'Art Américain Giverny and Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2008. Text (checklist) p. 95.
• Hausberg, Meg, and Victoria Sancho Lobis, Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2015, ref.

Websites

• Terra Foundation website.