Read the visual description
Shown from the waist up, a woman with pale, peachy skin reads a book with one elbow propped on a grassy bank in this horizontal painting. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she looks down at a pale green-covered book held in her right hand, which is in the lower left corner of the composition. The woman has dark brows over hooded eyes, and her dark brown hair falls loosely behind her shoulders. She has a round face, straight nose, and pale lips. She touches her hair with her left hand, to our right, with that pinky delicately crooked. One strap of a sleeveless, pearl-white chemise falls off the shoulder of that arm, and the dress nestles around her belly, revealing much of the other breast. Leafy trees and gray rocks are loosely painted behind her. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “G. Courbet.”
National Gallery of Art · Painting
A Young Woman Reading
Gustave Courbet
- Date
- c. 1866/1868
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 60 x 72.9 cm (23 5/8 x 28 11/16 in.) framed: 81.3 x 94.6 cm (32 x 37 1/4 in.)
- Classification
- Painting
- Accession number
- 1963.10.114
- Credit line
- Chester Dale Collection
- Time span
- 1851 to 1875
- Department
- CF
Subjects and terms
- painted surface
- French
- female
- figure
- Seated figure
- French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century. Part I: Before Impressionism [1800-1859]
- Realist
- Reading
- Semi-nude
Provenance
The artist to (Durand-Ruel et Cie., Paris) in 1872.[1] (sale, comte de R..., Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 27 January 1875, no. 14, as _Femme lisant_, 650 francs). Ad. Reitlinger, Paris, by 1882.[2] Alexandre Bernheim-Jeune [d. 1915], Paris.[3] Alexandre Berthier, 4th prince de Wagram [1883-1918], Paris. (Jos Hessel, Paris), in 1923.[4] (E.J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam), in 1924. (Etienne Bignou, Paris), in 1924; sold to (Paul Rosenberg, Paris);[5] sold before 1931 to Max Silberberg [d. 1944], Breslau, Germany [now Wroclaw, Poland];[6] (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 9 June 1932, no. 18); Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA. [1] According to a letter from Robert Fernier to David Rust dated 31 July 1972, in NGA curatorial files. According to the Bignou photo albums at the Documentation center of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, the picture passed through the Barbazanges gallery, but that has not been confirmed by any other source. [2] Lent by Reitlinger to _Exposition des Oeuvres de Gustave Courbet_, Ecole national superieure des beaux-arts, Paris, 1882, no. 30. [3] According to Chester Dale papers in NGA curatorial files. [4] According to Chester Dale papers in NGA curatorial files. In Robert Fernier, _La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, catalogue raisonné_, Lausanne and Paris, 1977: I:172, no. 287, Hessel is not listed in the provenance except as an expert in the 1932 Silberberg sale. [5] In a letter to Chester Dale dated 5 August 1932, in NGA curatorial files, Paul Rosenberg says the painting went through several hands from the Reitlinger collection, and that Rosenberg bought the painting from Bignou and sold it to Silberberg. Chester Dale papers in NGA curatorial files give Rosenberg and Bignou as joint owners, after van Wisselingh, in 1926. [6] Published in Karl Scheffler, "Die Sammlung Max Silberberg," _Kunst und Kunstler_, October 1931, repro. p. 7.
Inscription
lower right: G.Courbet.
NGA object ID 46589. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.