Maud on a Stairway

A casual record of daily life, Maud on a Stairway shows Englishwoman Maud (Mary) Franklin (1857-1939), James McNeill Whistler’s model and mistress, pausing as she ascends a staircase, evidently in the artist’s studio. Drawing as much as painting with thin watercolor, Whistler portrayed the fashionably dressed woman with almost finicky detail, sketching in the muted stairway and leaving the surrounding architectural space virtually blank, giving the image an air of deliberate incompleteness. Maud is a note of bright color and suspended movement in the rigid confines of the stairway, her quickly drawn face registering a note of surprise at the interruption of her progress.

Maud, who began posing for Whistler around 1873 and borne him two children, remained with him until his marriage to Beatrice Birnie Philip Godwin in 1888. Maud stood in for sitters for commissioned portraits and posed for numerous paintings and prints of solitary female figures. These include an earlier etching, two states of which are in the Terra Foundation’s collection: entitled Maud, Standing (TF 1989.8, TF 1999.148). While Whistler also sometimes portrayed Maud informally in domestic settings, seemingly unposed, Maud on a Stairway is unusual in its spontaneity and suggestion of interrupted activity. It relates 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 between 1882 and 1885 (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.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

Regard sur James Abbott McNeill Whistler (James Abbott McNeill Whistler at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 30, 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 (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain, Giverny, France, April 2–October 31, 1996. [exh. cat.]

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

Modern Harmonies: Whistler Reflects on his Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 31–August 31, 2003.

Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15–July 2005.

Portrait of a Lady : peintures et photographies américaines en France, 1870–1915 (Portrait of a Lady: American Paintings and Photographs in France, 1870–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France and  Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France (organizers). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–July 14, 2008;  Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, September 25, 2008–January 5, 2009 (exhibited in Giverny). [exh. cat.]

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-37, p. 146 (color).

MacDonald, Margaret F. James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours; A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press, 1995. Text no. 882, p. 332; ill. no. 882, p. 332 (color).

Lecomte, Vanessa, editor. Portrait of a Lady : peinture et photographies américains (exh. cat., Musée d'Art  Américain Giverny and Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux). Chicago, Illinois: 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. Essay text para 24, fig. 30 (color).