''The Reading'' (''La Lecture'' in French) is an oil-on-canvas painting by French painter

Henri Fantin-Latour Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. Biography He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...

executed in 1877. It was acquired in 1901 by the city of

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

and by the

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...

where it is conserved. The painting depicts two women sitting in a room. The woman on the right is reading a book, leaning on a table covered with a decorative patterned

tablecloth A tablecloth is a cloth used to cover a table. Some are mainly ornamental coverings, which may also help protect the table from scratches and stains. Other tablecloths are designed to be spread on a dining table before laying out tableware and ...

and a vase with some flowers. The other woman, on the left, seems not to listen to the reading as she appears to be distracted. Both the background wall and the black dresses of both women are very austere. The theme of the work evokes the escape of women by reading. The woman on the left represents the artist's

sister-in-law A sibling-in-law is the spouse of one's sibling, or the sibling of one's spouse, or the person who is married to the sibling of one's spouse.Cambridge Dictionaries Online.Family: non-blood relations. More commonly, a sibling-in-law is referred ...

, Charlotte Dubourg. The painting was exhibited in 1877 at the

Salon (Paris) The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

, in 1878 at the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy in London, and in 1900 at the Société des Beaux-Arts in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. During the Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2009 in Lyon, artist Wong Hoy Cheong reinterpreted the painting in a photograph of Muslim women wearing a

burqa A burqa or a burka, or , and ur, , it is also transliterated as burkha, bourkha, burqua or burqu' or borgha' and is pronounced natively . It is generally pronounced in the local variety of Arabic or variety of Persian, which varies. Examp ...

References

1877 paintings Paintings by Henri Fantin-Latour Paintings in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon Books in art {{19C-painting-stub