Reading Woman

A woman sits in a red armchair, her white blouse slipping from her shoulder, reading a book in her hands. Her hair is piled high and her bare feet are drawn up on the chair. To the left is a blue curtain, and on the back wall something like a large patterned cloth can be seen. Clear colors such as red, white, yellow, green, and blue are used, giving a warm color scheme overall. It is oil on canvas, measuring 56.0 x 46.0 cm.

According to the museum's commentary, Renoir often painted women reading, and the most famous example is Reading Woman (1874) in the Musee d'Orsay. In that picture the subject is a face shining in bright sunlight, whereas this work catches the woman from diagonally behind, and neither the model's face nor her name is known.

She is absorbed in a time that is hers alone, and the painting has an intimate air, as if the artist had peeked in on her. The museum explains that interior scenes with a person reading, painted repeatedly by Manet, Morisot, and others, were a "new sight" of Paris at the time and one of the subjects favored by Impressionist figure painters.