Reading 1822

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon created this print entitled 'Reading' using etching and aquatint. It encapsulates a moment of quiet intimacy, a young woman pausing from her book to nuzzle a dove. Prints like this one circulated widely in France and elsewhere. They were a key part of the expanding visual culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This was a society undergoing massive social and political change with revolutions in America and France, and the rise of Napoleon. The image suggests a neoclassical style. The woman's dress, the decor behind her, the urns, and even the little cupid on the chair all evoke ancient Greece and Rome. One might study the original books that the woman would have been reading, or the fashion plates that reveal the origins of her garments, to better understand how this image would have been seen and understood. The role of the historian is to see it as more than just a charming image.