Girl Reading a Newspaper

Catalogue entry

Louis Anquetin 1861-1932

N03690 Jeune Femme lisant un Journal (Girl reading a Newspaper) 1890

Inscribed 'Anquetin | 90' b.l.
Pastel on paper mounted on millboard, 21 ¼ x 17 (54 x 43.5)
Presented by Francis Howard 1922
Prov: Francis Howard, London (probably purchased from the artist through the International Society 1906)
Exh: Sixth Exhibition (Second Section), International Society, London, February-March 1906 (87) as 'Jeune Femme lisant un Journal'; Paintings and Sculpture by Members of the National Portrait Society, Cartwright Memorial Hall, Bradford, July-October 1910 (32) as 'Portrait (pastel)', lent by Francis Howard; Modern Loan Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, November 1917 (138) as 'Mont Matre [sic] Type'
Lit: William Rothenstein, Men and Memories (London 1931), Vol.1, p.64
Repr: Burlington Magazine, XLIV, 1924, p.203;. John Rothenstein, Modern Foreign Pictures in the Tate Gallery (London 1949), pl.75; Maurice Rheims, The Age of Art Nouveau (London 1966), pl.VIII in colour

Known for many years as 'The Absinthe Drinker', a title which seems to be incorrect. It is almost certainly the pastel 'Girl reading a Newspaper' exhibited at the International Society in 1906; the donor was a member of the International Society's Executive Council.

Anquetin used the same model for another pastel called 'Woman on a Japanese Background', which was exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale in May-July 1891 (953, repr.). The late Francis Howard said that he seemed to remember that visiting artists from Paris recognised her as a well-known model for similar pictures by several painters of women café frequenters (letter of 30 October 1953).

Published in: Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.14-15, reproduced p.14

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