Woman Reading
Artist: Aimé-Jules Dalou (French, 1838-1902)
Date: original about 1877; cast about 1905-1917
Dimensions:
H: 22 in. (55.9 cm)
Medium: Bronze
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1963.35
Label Text:Although Aimé-Jules Dalou’s life ambition was to become a sculptor of public monuments, after he was exiled from France for his revolutionary politics, he found great success in England sculpting tabletop domestic scenes like Woman Reading. Dalou has captured an intimate moment of a woman absorbed in a book, a common and appropriate pastime for upper-class 19th-century women. Woman Reading represents a stylish woman of leisure, as evidenced by her delicate high heels, her fashionable and voluminous robe, and the decorative chair she sits upon.
The sculpture contrasts greatly with Dalou’s Model for the Delacroix Monument, also in the Museum’s collection, which is more dynamic and speaks to Dalou’s ambition to create “public heroic art.”
The sculpture contrasts greatly with Dalou’s Model for the Delacroix Monument, also in the Museum’s collection, which is more dynamic and speaks to Dalou’s ambition to create “public heroic art.”
Not on view
In Collection(s)