Artwork App

A young woman in a dark hat and coat with light ruffled collar sits reading a large periodical held up in her gloved hands. Flowers and foliage are suggested behind her.

61.2 × 50.7 cm (24 1/16 × 19 7/8 in.); Framed: 83.2 × 73.1 × 9.9 cm (32 3/4 × 28 3/4 × 3 7/8 in.)

Woman Reading

During the late nineteenth century, Parisian cafés were the gathering places of artists and writers and were ideal locations for observing the urban scene. Many Impressionist paintings depict the Café Nouvelle-Athènes on the rue Pigalle, where two tables were reserved for Édouard Manet and his circle—a group that included the painters Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and the writers Charles Baudelaire and Émile Zola.

At first glance, this fashionably dressed young woman appears to have been captured sitting at a favorite café: the marble tabletop, beer mug, and magazine attached to a wooden bar suggest such a setting, and her heavy clothing and kid gloves indicate that she is at an outdoor table and that the weather is cool. However, the floral background is actually one of Manet's paintings and the café a re-creation in his studio.

Woman Reading is one of the most Impressionist of Manet’s images; the quick, free brushstrokes and light colors are characteristic of his technique late in his career. Painted only a few years before his death, this work admirably captures a fleeting moment, the sense of modern life that Manet and his contemporaries sought to represent.

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection

Colors

Exhibition History

Paris, Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition des Oeuvres de Édouard Manet, January 1884, cat. 92. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Exhibition of Paintings: Édouard Manet, Pierre Renoir, Berthe Morisot, October–December 1924, cat. 37 (ill.). Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition des Oeuvre de Manet, 1925, cat. 78. Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition des Oeuvre de Manet, April–May 1928, cat. 25 (ill.). Berlin, Goldschmidt Galerie, Impressionisten Sondersusstellung, 1928. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mrs. L. L. Coburn Collection, 1932, cat. 17 (ill.). The Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1933, cat. 328. The Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1934, cat. 249. New York, Wildenstein & Co., Edouard Manet: A Retrospective Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of French Hospitals, March–April 1937, cat. 29 (ill.). San Francisco, Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate International Exposition 1940, cat. 276 (ill.). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, French Painting From David Toulouse-Lautrec, February–March 1941, cat. 81. Des Moines, Iowa, Art Center, 19th and 20th Century European and American Art, 1948, no cat. Birmingham, Ala., Museum of Art, Catalogue of the Opening Exhibition, April 8–June 3, 1951, p. 29. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Manet, November 3–December 11, 1966, cat. 161 (ill.); traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, February 13–19, 1967. The Art Institute of Chicago, Art at the Time of the Centennial, June 19–August 8, 1976, extended to August 15, 1976, no cat. Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Trésors Impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, June 27–August 31, 1980, cat. 4 (ill.). Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, Manet and Modern Paris, December 5, 1982–March 6, 1983, cat. 22 (ill.). Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Manet: 1832–1883, April 22–August 1, 1983, cat. 174 (ill.); traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 10–November 27, 1983. Tokyo, Seibu, Museum of Art, The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from The Art Institute of Chicago, October 18–December 17, 1985, cat. 34 (ill.); traveled to Fukuoka, Art Museum, January 5–February 2, 1986; and Kyoto, Municipal Museum of Art, March 4–April 13, 1986. Tokyo, ASAHI, Masterworks of Modern Art From The Art Institute of Chicago, 1994, cat. 9 (ill.); traveled to Nagaoka, Niiagata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art; Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art; and Yokohama Museum of Art, 1994-1995. London, National Gallery, Impressions: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890, November 1, 2000-January 28, 2001, no cat. no. (ill.); Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, March 2-May 20, 2001; Williamstown, Mass., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, June 16-September 9, 2001. Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–November 2, 2008, cat. 21 (ill.). The Art Institute of Chicago, Manet and Modern Beauty, May 26 - September 8, 2019, cat no. 56; The J. Paul Getty Museum, October 8, 2019–January 12, 2020. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Manet & Morisot, Oct. 11, 2025-Feb. 15, 2026, no cat. no., pl. 63; Cleveland Museum of Art, Mar. 29–July 5, 2026 (Cleveland only)