Reader

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A Young Girl Reading: Jean-Honoré Fragonard: c. 1770, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington)


 

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window: Johannes Vermeer, 1657, oil on canvas, 83 x 64.5 cm (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden)


 

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (detail): Johannes Vermeer, 1657, oil on canvas, 83 x 64.5 cm (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden)


 

Woman in Blue Reading a Letter: Johannes Vermeer, 1663-64,oil on canvas, 46.6 x 39.1 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)


 

Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (detail): Johannes Vermeer, 1663-64,oil on canvas, 46.6 x 39.1 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)


 

Woman Reading a Letter: Pieter de Hooch, 1664. oil on canvas, 55 x 55 cm (Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest)


 

Young Woman in Orison Reading a Book of Hours: Ambrosius Benson, 1520s, oil on panel, 75 x 55 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris)


 

Woman Reading a Letter (detail): Gerard Terborch, 1660-62, oil on canvas, 79 x 68 cm (Royal Collection, London)


 

Old Woman Reading a Bible: Gerrit Dou, c. 1630, oil on wood, 71 x 56 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)



Woman Reading: Pieter Janssens Elinga (1623-1682), n.d., oil on canvas, 75.5 x 63.5 cm (Alte Pinkothek, Munich)



Woman Reading a Letter: Gabriel Metsu, 1662-65, oil on panel, 53 x 40 cm (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)



  Lesende / Reader, Gerhard Richter, 1994, oil on linen, 102 x 72 cm; image by Randall Hobbett, 28 October 2008 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

“Painter and subject both require to be free of … irksome material attachment.  And separate at last both find their natural condition, their fullest life.  The feminine subject is intact, entire.  The painter has no part in her immemorial existence.  She remains outside him, essentially and perfectly other than he.  And being so she is to him the most complete enrichment.  The necessary halves of a world have come together: it is a marriage of light.”

 -- Lawrence Gowing, Vermeer, London, Giles de la Mare, 1952