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| Vincenzo Foppa Young Cicero Reading ca. 1464 fresco transferred to canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Anonymous Venetian Artist St Paul ca. 1510-20 oil on canvas Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Gerard ter Borch Lady Reading a Letter ca. 1665 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| attributed to Onorio Marinari St Catherine of Alexandria ca. 1670 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Hubert-François Gravelot Le Lecteur ca. 1733-56 oil on canvas York City Art Gallery |
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| Allan Ramsay Portrait of Emily, Marchioness of Kildare ca. 1764-66 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
from The Rambler
"From the time that my leading strings were taken off, I scarce heard any mention of my beauty but from the milliner, the mantua-maker, and my own maid; for my mamma never said more when she heard me commended but "The girl is very well," and then endeavored to divert my attention to some inquiry after my needle or my book."
"It is now three months since I have been suffered to pay and receive visits, to dance at public assemblies, to have a place kept for me in the boxes, and to play at Lady Racket's rout, and you may easily imagine what I think of those who have so long cheated me with false expectations, disturbed me with fictitious terrors, and concealed from me all that I have found to make the happiness of woman."
"I am so far from perceiving the usefulness and necessity of books that if I had not dropped all pretensions to learning I should have lost Mr. Trip, whom I once frighted into another box by retailing some of Dryden's remarks upon a tragedy; for Mr. Trip declares that he hates nothing like hard words, and I am sure there is not a better partner to be found; his very walk is a dance. I have talked once or twice among ladies about principles and ideas, but they put their fans before their faces and told me I was too wise for them, who for their part never pretended to read anything but the playbill . . . "
– Samuel Johnson (1752)
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| Thomas Sully The Love Letter 1834 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Charles Edward Perugini Girl Reading 1878 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema Prose 1879 oil on panel National Museum Cardiff (Wales) |
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| Charles Haigh-Wood Reading the Letter 1890 oil on canvas National Museum Cardiff (Wales) |
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| Adrian Allinson Girl Reading 1933 oil on board University of Hull Art Collection, Yorkshire |
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| Henry Lamb Girl Reading 1939 oil on canvas Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland |
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| Peter Foldes Portrait of Professor Anthony Blunt Reading 1947 oil on canvas Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| James Cowie School Room before 1956 oil on paper Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow |
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| Tim Wheeler Portrait of Stella Newton 1991 oil on canvas Courtauld Gallery, London |