The Reading is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French painter Henri Fantin-Latour, created in 1870.

[1] The theme of reading was the subject of several paintings by the artist, thus representing an important role in his work.

The painting is a superb example of the talent of Fantin-Latour in the representation of intimate spaces, in a sober style, with a realistic outlook, and revealing to the observer his preferred universe, a silent, poetic and dreamy environment, with vaguely melancholic outlines.

The contrast between the illuminated surface and the darkest area of the painting, where the two women are positioned, accentuates the ambiguity that the viewer can feel between proximity and distance, giving the scene the suggestion of a contained opposition, also shown in other of the artist paintings.

[2][3] The painting belonged to Charles E. Haviland, then to art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who acquired it in Paris, in 1917, having been subsequently bought by the Armenian-British collector Calouste Gulbenkian in December 1917.