Reading by Manet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2023

Title: Reading

Artist: Edouard Manet

Date: ca. 1866, probably resumed ca. 1873

Culture: French

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 24 × 28 13/16 in. (61 × 73.2 cm)
Framed: 30 5/16 × 36 in. (77 × 91.5 cm)

Credit Line: Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1944 17)

Object No.: MD.127

Manet began this double portrait just a few years after he married Suzanne Leenhoff. Executed in two campaigns, the painting initially portrayed her alone. Known for his use of black, the artist here takes an interest in the varied effects of light filtering into the room through sheer curtains and falling across a white muslin dress and pale sofa. When he returned to the canvas years later, Manet added the plant at left and Léon on the right, standing behind his mother and absorbed in a book.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/manet-degas/exhibition-objects