The Reading (Fantin-Latour painting)
The Reading (La Lecture in French) is a painting by French painter Henri Fantin-Latour in 1877. It was acquired in 1901 by the city of Lyon and by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon where it is currently conserved.
The painting depicts two women sitting in a room. The woman on the right is reading a book, leaning on a table covered with a decorative patterned tablecloth and a vase with some flowers. The other woman, on the left, seems not to listen to the reading as she appears to be distracted. Both the background wall, which holds a large part of the painting, and the black dresses of both women are very austere.
The theme of the work can evoke the escape of women by reading. The woman on the left represents the artist's sister-in-law, Charlotte Dubourg. The painting was exhibited in 1877 at the Salon (Paris), in 1878 at the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy in London, and in 1900 at the Société des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
During the Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2009 in Lyon, artist Wong Hoy Cheong reinterpreted the painting in a photograph of Muslim women wearing a burqa.
The Reading (Manet painting)
The Reading is an oil painting by French painter Édouard Manet, circa 1865 - 1873.
History
The painting was first exhibited in 1880 in one of the regular solo exhibitions mounted by Manet in his workshop. The picture was also part of the great posthumous exhibition of Manet's work in 1884, a year after his death.
The work first belonged to the private collection of Winnaretta Singer, Princess Edmond de Polignac, where it remained until 1944, after the death of the Princess. It was offered as a gift to the French State and deposited in the Musée du Louvre. In 1947, it was transferred to the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a showroom located in the Jardin des Tuileries and which belongs to the Louvre. It remained there until 1986, when, with the creation of the Musée d'Orsay, it was brought to this museum, like the rest of the collection of Impressionist paintings in the Louvre. It can currently be seen in the Musée d'Orsay, in room 31 of level 5.
Analysis
The painting depicts the artist's wife, Suzanne Manet (born Suzanne Leenhoff), seated, and their son, Leon, standing and reading a book. Leon was a recurrent model for Manet who portrayed him in several pictures, such as The Lunch, The Boy Carrying a Sword and The Bubbles of Soap.
Bucks County Classic
The Bucks County Classic (Univest GP) is a professional bicycle road race contested in the region surrounding the borough of Souderton in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The event, which was founded in 1998 by former professional cyclist John Eustice, is sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – the world governing body of competitive cycling.
In addition to the main event, a 160 km road race that finishes with multiple laps on a circuit in Souderton, the Univest GP has expanded to include a non-competitive 100 km Recreational ride known as the Univest Cyclosportif 100K and the Univest Criterium of Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
The race is noteworthy not just for its sanctioning by the UCI (making it one of only 13 such events held for men in the United States in 2008), but also for its course, which passes through 16 municipalities. This type of large-circuit road race has become extremely rare in the United States.
Name of the race
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