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Young Woman Reading

Lucius Rossi

Italian, 1846–1913

Young Woman Reading

1875

Rossi's small panel is filled with details. Within this extravagantly decorated interior—which includes a painted ceiling and Asian-inspired upholstery, fire screen, and fan—a lavishly dressed woman reclines on a sofa. Her pose, costume, and luxurious surroundings suggest an expensive courtesan rather than a bourgeois wife. Perhaps the letter she reads comes not from a husband but from a lover or a client.

Medium oil on panel
Dimensions 9 9/16 x 7 7/16 in. (24.3 x 18.9 cm)
Object Number 1955.846
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Lucius Rossi, Young Woman Reading, 1875, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.846

Select Bibliography

Ludig, Sandra G. Between the Lines: Ladies and Letters at the Clark. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1982. Cass, David B. and John Wetenhall. Italian Paintings 1850-1910 from Collections in the Northeastern United States. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1982. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY

Provenance

[Georges Muller, Paris, sold to Clark, 10 Dec. 1937]; Robert Sterling Clark (1937–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.

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