Young Girl Reading Her Book

Mosè Bianchi visited Paris in the late 1860s, supported by a pension from Brera Fine Arts Academy in his native Milan. There, Bianchi found a kindred spirit in Ernest Meissonier, whose meticulously rendered realist paintings inspired Bianchi to produce genre scenes in historical settings. Though leading Paris art dealer Goupil & Cie commissioned portraits and city views from Bianchi—compositions that established the artist’s international reputation—he returned to Italy for the remainder of his career. The Milanese middle class avidly collected Bianchi’s increasingly impressionistic scenes of everyday life, such as the intensely hued Young Girl Reading Her Book.

Image Caption

Mosè Bianchi, Young Girl Reading Her Book, c. 1880, pastel with oil on paper. Clark Art Institute, gift of Frank and Katherine Martucci, 2013.1.12