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Tea Leaves

1909
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 770
Paxton often depicted refined upper-class women at leisure in handsome Boston interiors of the sort they would have decorated and occupied. By equating women with precious objets d’art, Paxton echoed the spirit of the novelist Henry James, who portrayed the issue of women as collectible objects in novels such as Portrait of a Lady (1881). Paxton’s restrained palette and precise rendering of figures and setting revealed his academic training in Paris with Jean-Léon Gérôme. His quiet, evocative paintings also suggest the Boston taste for so-called Little Dutch Masters, such as Jan Vermeer.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Tea Leaves
  • Artist: William McGregor Paxton (American, Baltimore, Maryland 1869–1941 Boston, Massachusetts)
  • Date: 1909
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 36 1/8 x 28 3/4 in. (91.6 x 71.9 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of George A. Hearn, 1910
  • Object Number: 10.64.8
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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