The February painting on my Women Reading calendar (see also 1st of each month since) is Robert Hope's The Yellow Silk Dress. Hope was British (Scottish, I think), and lived between 1869-1936.
This has a lazy, slightly sensual air, without the exoticism of the January reader. She is less a serious reader, one suspects, than a woman merely whiling away an hour or so with a fashionable magazine - for that is what she seems to be reading. It's a large format, certainly, and appears to be mainly full of illustrations: assuming that the painting dates from around the turn of the century, could it be the famous Yellow Book of the 1890s, daring literary and artistic magazine of some decadence? The echo of "yellow" is alluring, and the idea that this woman is looking at sketches by Aubrey Beardsley is a charmingly risque one!
What a stunning painting I love it!
Posted by: buy viagra | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 03:47 PM
I was intrigued by the challenge about pictures of men reading. Well, how about Manet's "La Lecture" where a male figure reading a book is to be seen standing behind the portrait of Mme Manet seated a touch unconfortably on a sofa in flowing white, his hand gently laid on the back of the sofa.(For a link try http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=14718) Why does the title so firmly take attention away form the sitter to a 'detail' at the back? Of course, he is reading aloud to her - quite a different sort of 'reading' to the one one is probably expecting, it is her 'listening' which is as much the subject of the painting (and isn't she a touch bored?)Another one reading mundane matter?
Posted by: PeterL | Monday, 02 February 2009 at 02:40 PM
Dear Lindsay, from Cornflower's weblog here is another young woman reading for you to dream about http://cornflower.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c6f9553ef00e553d71a0b8834-pi .Sorry to have made such a mundane comment yesterday!
Posted by: Dark Puss | Monday, 02 February 2009 at 09:24 AM
Leave me my dreams! But don't you think the echo of "yellow" is convincing - and her colour is somewhat heightened. I think she was bored, waiting for something to happen, picked this up, and is now gtting intrigued ...
Posted by: Lindsay | Sunday, 01 February 2009 at 11:03 PM
Cornflower is correct I think in assuming her reading matter is rather mundane, or perhaps she is just too jaded by now. In fact she looks rather fed-up to me. The "Yellow Book" was also of some considerable typographic interest too if I remember correctly back to my teenage years when I took a serious interest in such matters.
Posted by: Dark Puss | Sunday, 01 February 2009 at 08:33 PM
Hope's got all the fabrics down well, but does not her expression (general countenance, even) suggest she's reading something a little more mundane than The Yellow Book?!
Posted by: Cornflower | Sunday, 01 February 2009 at 10:46 AM