Lot Essay
RELATED LITERATURE:
Elizabeth Stillinger, "Dwight Blaney and the Craft of Collecting," in The Antiquers, New York, 1980, pp.105-112
In the summer of 1916, William McGregor Paxton and his wife travelled to Ironbound Island, Maine, near Bar Harbor, to visit the Blaney family at their summer home. Paxton was close friends with Dwight Blaney, a prominent Bostonian who was also a painter, collector, and patron of the arts. During the summer months the Blaney home on Ironbound Island often overflowed with houseguests who were artists, including Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Joseph De Camp, John Leslie Breck, and Adelaide Chase, among others. Paxton's portrait of Dwight Blaney's daughter Elizabeth reveals the warmth and friendship shared by the Paxtons and the Blaneys.
Paxton chose to paint Elizabeth seated in the main room of a building that Dwight Blaney used as a studio. Flooded with sunlight, the 'school room', as it was called, was a cheerful gathering place for both the children and adults. Later in life Elizabeth Blaney remarked that she retreated to this room on rainy days to curl up and read. Interior details of the school room suggest a comfortable, well-tended hideaway, with polished brass pots and seashells adorning the mantlepiece and a map of the New England coast hanging above. Although the presence of these objects in the composition might at first seem arbitrary, Paxton has used them to highlight Elizabeth's face as she looks up from her reading. The spareness and freshness of the setting reflect the spartan lifestyle that prominent Boston families such as the Blaneys led during the summer months. In addition, Elizabeth Blaney's personal appearance reflects these practical virtues -- she wears a pink middy blouse, her hair is pulled neatly away from her face, and her chosen activity is reading -- an acceptable pastime for a young woman whose family valued the cultivation of the mind.
Throughout his career William McGregor Paxton was drawn to various types of interiors, both sophisticated urban dwellings as well as simpler, sparer surroundings, such as that in Portrait of Elizabeth Blaney. In whatever setting the artist chose to depict an individual, he used features in the room to enhance the character of the sitter. Thus Paxton evokes the contemplative side of Elizabeth by painting her in a quiet, reflective moment as she sits in the sun-filled schoolroom.
Elizabeth Stillinger, "Dwight Blaney and the Craft of Collecting," in The Antiquers, New York, 1980, pp.105-112
In the summer of 1916, William McGregor Paxton and his wife travelled to Ironbound Island, Maine, near Bar Harbor, to visit the Blaney family at their summer home. Paxton was close friends with Dwight Blaney, a prominent Bostonian who was also a painter, collector, and patron of the arts. During the summer months the Blaney home on Ironbound Island often overflowed with houseguests who were artists, including Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Joseph De Camp, John Leslie Breck, and Adelaide Chase, among others. Paxton's portrait of Dwight Blaney's daughter Elizabeth reveals the warmth and friendship shared by the Paxtons and the Blaneys.
Paxton chose to paint Elizabeth seated in the main room of a building that Dwight Blaney used as a studio. Flooded with sunlight, the 'school room', as it was called, was a cheerful gathering place for both the children and adults. Later in life Elizabeth Blaney remarked that she retreated to this room on rainy days to curl up and read. Interior details of the school room suggest a comfortable, well-tended hideaway, with polished brass pots and seashells adorning the mantlepiece and a map of the New England coast hanging above. Although the presence of these objects in the composition might at first seem arbitrary, Paxton has used them to highlight Elizabeth's face as she looks up from her reading. The spareness and freshness of the setting reflect the spartan lifestyle that prominent Boston families such as the Blaneys led during the summer months. In addition, Elizabeth Blaney's personal appearance reflects these practical virtues -- she wears a pink middy blouse, her hair is pulled neatly away from her face, and her chosen activity is reading -- an acceptable pastime for a young woman whose family valued the cultivation of the mind.
Throughout his career William McGregor Paxton was drawn to various types of interiors, both sophisticated urban dwellings as well as simpler, sparer surroundings, such as that in Portrait of Elizabeth Blaney. In whatever setting the artist chose to depict an individual, he used features in the room to enhance the character of the sitter. Thus Paxton evokes the contemplative side of Elizabeth by painting her in a quiet, reflective moment as she sits in the sun-filled schoolroom.