Woman Reading, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1634
etching, h 124mm × w 103mm More details
Art of the 17th century teems with reading figures, namely saints, prophets, or lay people studying the Bible. However, that is not what Rembrandt depicts here. This is an intimate, domestic scene in which a contemporary woman is engrossed in reading. The text cannot be recognized, but given the book’s relatively small size, it is probably not a Bible.
