William McGregor Paxton

William McGregor Paxton painted quiet interiors with women reading, sewing or arranging flowers, lit by soft window light that picks out skin, silk and polished wood. His work has a stillness and finish that recalls Vermeer.

Born in Baltimore and raised near Boston, he studied with Dennis Miller Bunker and then in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme. Back in Boston he became a leading figure of the Boston School and co-founded the Guild of Boston Artists. He painted presidents Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, and often used his wife Elizabeth as a model. Tea Leaves is at the Metropolitan Museum and The New Necklace at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

He liked to keep some edges sharp and others soft, as the eye sees them, which gives his rooms their natural look.