Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/theodore-roussel-462" aria-label="More by Théodore Roussel" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Théodore Roussel</a>
Reading Girl
Presented by Mrs Walter Herriot and Miss R. Herriot in memory of the artist 1927
actions: postures and motions
adults
book - non-specific
chair
clothing and personal items
female
furnishings
individuals: female
kimono
leisure and pastimes
named individuals
nudes
objects
people
Pettigrew, Hetty
portraits
reading
reading, writing, printed matter
recreational activities
sitting
woman
<p>Though based in Britain from 1870, Roussel was French, and this composition shows a debt to the fashion for Oriental art that swept France in the 1860s. The nude model, Hetty Pettigrew, provides the key element in Roussel's bold pictorial design. Her diagonal placing effectively cuts the square canvas in half, creating equal areas of light and dark. Roussel uses naturalistically painted detail to decorative effect. The luminosity of the model's skin tone is echoed by the peach fabric of the kimono, and is dramatically opposed to the blackness of the setting. In the opinion of Roussel's contemporary, the painter Sir William Orpen, this was the finest nude painting of his time.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 September 2003 – 1 February 2004
2004-02-01
24 September 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
2003-09-24
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie (Frankfurt, Germany)
http://www.staedelmuseum.de
2003-09-24
Naked! The Female Body and the Rise of Modernism
Loan-out
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
Gallery 9
Collection based display
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
11 May 2016 – 25 September 2016
2016-09-25
11 May 2016 – 25 September 2016
2016-09-25
2016-05-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-05-11
Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the modern age
Exhibition
5 November 2016 – 31 August 2025
2025-08-31
10 November 2023 – 14 April 2024
2024-04-14
2023-11-10
LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Westfälisches (Munster, Germany)
http://landesmuseum.lwl.org
1 April 2025 – 31 August 2025
2025-08-31
2025-04-01
External
2016-11-05
Nude: art from the Tate collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
The Reading Girl
support: 1527 × 1620 × 25 mm
Frame : 18900x 1973 × 174 mm
Presented by Mrs Walter Herriot and Miss R. Herriot in memory of the artist 1927
<p>French by birth and upbringing, Roussel moved to London after his first marriage in 1870.  He was a close friend and pupil of Whistler and shared his love of Japanese art, evident here not only in the elegant kimono, casually draped over the folding chair, but in the overall treatment of space. The young girl is Hetty Pettigrew (1867-1953) who was the artist's favourite model and also posed, along with her sisters Rose and Lily, for Millais and Whistler. She met Roussel in 1884 and not only became his mistress but gave birth to his daughter. She continued to sit for him until he re-married in 1914.

</p><p>In its frank nudity, flattening of forms and strong light-dark contrasts, <i>The Reading Girl </i>pays tribute to Edouard Manet's (1832-83) boldly subversive masterpiece, <i>Olympia</i> of 1863.  But Roussel combines Manet's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/modernism" title="Glossary definition for 'Modernism'"><span>modernism</span></a> with careful draughtsmanship and a more traditional <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classicism</span></a> that looks back to J.A.D. Ingres (1780-1867). On the other hand, the subject is not presented as a classical Venus, but rather as a robust and healthy young woman, with a taste for current fashion. The discarded kimono, the model's elegant hairstyle and the folding campaign chair, are evidence of aesthetic preoccupations which align Roussel with such artists as Sir Frederic Leighton and the English <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/aesthetic-movement" title="Glossary definition for 'Aesthetic Movement'"><span>Aesthetic movement</span></a>.  The critic Frederick Wedmore was impressed by the model's firm and youthful figure and compared the picture with 'the most health-suggesting, health-breathing of Courbets, with the most rosily robust of Caro Delvaille's (<i>Le Sommeil fleuri</i>), with the dreamiest Henner, with the slimmest and least material of Raphael Collin's (<i>Floréal</i>)' (Frederick Wedmore, 'Théodore Roussel', <i>The Art Journal</i>, 1909, p.184).  

</p><p>During the 1880s British art was moving away from an elevated, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/neoclassicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Neoclassicism'"><span>Neo-Classical</span></a> interpretation of the nude towards a new <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/naturalism" title="Glossary definition for 'Naturalism'"><span>naturalism</span></a>, regarded as a threat to moral standards. Roussel's picture was exhibited at the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/new-english-art-club" title="Glossary definition for 'New English Art Club'"><span>New English Art Club</span></a> in April 1887 and caused a mild scandal. The critic for the<i> Spectator</i> wrote: 'Our imagination fails to conceive any adequate reason for a picture of this sort.  It is <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/realism" title="Glossary definition for 'Realism'"><span>realism</span></a> of the worst kind, the artist's eye seeing only the vulgar outside of his model, and reproducing that callously and brutally.  No human being, we should imagine, could take any pleasure in such a picture as this; it is a degradation of Art' (<i>Spectator</i>, 16 April 1887).

</p><p><b>Further reading: <br/></b>Kenneth McConkey, <i>British Impressionism</i>, London 1989, p.57, reproduced p.50, in colour.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>8 December 2000

</p><p></p>
Summary
2004-08-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Though based in Britain from 1870, Roussel was French, and this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> shows a debt to the fashion for Oriental art that swept France in the 1860s. The nude model, Hetty Pettigrew, provides the key element in Roussel's bold pictorial design. Her diagonal placing effectively cuts the square <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> in half, creating equal areas of light and dark. Roussel uses naturalistically painted detail  to decorative effect. The luminosity of the model's skin tone is echoed by the peach fabric of the kimono, and is dramatically opposed to the  blackness of the setting. In the opinion of Roussel's contemporary, the painter Sir William Orpen, this  was the finest nude <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of his time. </p>
Display caption
2004-08-27T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions adults book - non-specific chair clothing and personal items female furnishings individuals: female kimono leisure and pastimes named individuals nudes objects people Pettigrew, Hetty portraits reading reading, writing, printed matter recreational activities sitting woman