The motif of the reading lady, originating from a long iconographic tradition famously represented by Vermeer, such as Jeune fille lisant une lettre à la fenêtre (1657), has long fascinated artists. Depictions of women reading have proliferated, as Laure Adler demonstrates in her analysis of 20th-century paintings, where women who read could be seen as dangerous if they gained knowledge.
In La liseuse (The Reader), Louis Henri Salzmann does not seek to depict a specific person, but rather to capture the essence of a woman reading. Her sparsely detailed face reinforces her anonymity, and her deep concentration on a world that only she can access emphasizes the mysterious power of the act of reading, rather than the identity of the subject.
This work was also presented at MBAL as part of the exhibition Le plaisir du texte (2023).
Oil on canvas, on loan from the Swiss Federal Art Collection, inv. FK 2151
