William McGregor Paxton and The House Maid

'The House Maid' (1910) by William McGregor Paxton; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Today is my birthday and I'm happy to share with you this wonderful painting by an artist unknown to me. I found it in an art book and I looked up the dates of birth/death of the artist and guess what? The artist is William McGregor Paxton, born on June 22, 1869, and died on May 13, 1941. Click on the link to the Dutch Wikipedia page because for some reason the English one doesn't give the exact date of death, just the year. Paxton was an American Impressionist painter and let's make it official now: I absolutely love American Impressionist painters! I have come across so many already while doing this blog. I've been wanting to use today's painting ever since I saw it in the art book and fell in love with it. But having seen the images of his other paintings, I simply have to add three more paintings to give you an idea. So please feel free to click here and here and here. Paxton is best known for his portraits and was one of the founding members of The Guild of Boston Artists, together with Edmund C. Tarbell and Frank Weston Benson. The group consisted of Boston painters who all worked in the academic and realist tradition. Paxton painted his women in stylish interiors, like many of his Gilded Age contemporaries. In today's painting the woman depicted is not the mistress of the house though, but the house maid who discovers a book during the course of her duties.  It's not so difficult to see that Paxton was influenced by 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. I love the details and the objects on the table!