Left: A Reader by Albert Joseph Moore, ARWS (1841-1893). 1877. Oil on canvas. 34 3/8 x 12 5/8 inches (87.2 x 32 cm). Collection of Manchester Art Gallery, accession no. 1934.413. Image courtesy of Manchester Art Gallery via Art UK under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Middle: Version at Sotheby's, also oil on canvas of c. 1877, of a similar size. Left: Study for A Reader. c.1877. Black and white chalk on brown paper. 10 5/8 x 41 3/16 inches (27.1 x 12.7 cm). Collection of the National Gallery of Canada (accession no. 48902). Image courtesy of the author.
Moore exhibited A Reader at the Royal Academy in 1877, no. 469. The painting is primarily an arrangement in red and white showing a standing young woman wearing a coral-red robe overlaid with translucent white drapery gathered at her arms, a yellow cap, and three necklaces, two white and one black. She is reading a slim book held in her right hand while her left arm is bent and held across her upper abdomen. A single daffodil or narcissus lies near her right foot, next to a red and white patterned rug on the floor. The background is a shallow space featuring a hanging white fabric curtain decorated with a red flower pattern. An almost identical version to this composition, also entitled The Reader, sold at Sotheby's, London, on 19 June 1990, lot 54. While the two versions are comparable in size and colourways, they differ in minor details. The model's white drapery is handled slightly differently; she wears an olive-coloured chevron-patterned cap; only two necklaces, one of white and one of black beads; there is no narcissus by her right foot; and the rug on the floor has a different pattern and colourway. An early preliminary study in the National Gallery of Canada shows that at one time Moore considered having the model's head closer to the open book and had different ideas on how to handle the drapery. Moore's decision to move the position of the book relative to the model's head has made the figure appear much more elegant.
A Reader was frequently grouped with other similar works by Moore, such as Birds of the Air, a version of which is also at the Manchester City Art Gallery, or The End of the Story. These three paintings all date from the same period and feature a single standing female figure, clad in classical draperies, and standing in front of a cloth curtain with different floral designs. In 1878, the critic Frederick Wedmore in Temple Bar discussed Moore's use of such single figure compositions:
But now we have single figures wholly, as of old we had them frequently — single figures in which some accessories, of lovely and chosen form, play their part, and the part is not a small one, in completing the composition. And perhaps it is a more difficult achievement to have completed a composition with the lines of accessory objects, however fortunate and fair, than with the lines of some second or third figure. To draw a single figure as a study is one thing: to make with it a composition is quite another…. Now this year Mr. Moore has exhibited three of these single figures: two at the Grosvenor Gallery, and one at the Academy, and their beauties — so independent of incident or story — so wholly matters of expression, line, and hue, are very little fitted for description, but much repay to be seen.... You cannot translate into words the charms of the type nor the perfection of its record.... The nobility and distinction of the type and the expression raise it, as Mr. Moore's is wont to be raised, above work purely decorative. [343, 345]
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
F.G. Stephens in The Athenaeum felt this was just one more typical example of Moore's art: "Mr. A. Moore's A Reader (469), a single standing figure, a study of delicate quality, in rose-pink and white, marked by the style and the manner of the author, of equal excellence to that of most of his pictures, but certainly not superior to them" (677). W.M. Rossetti in The Spectator praised Moore's handling of draperies and the colour of the work: "No. 469, A Reader , by Albert Moore, is a delicate female figure, in light draperies, with an open book in her hands. As we have said over and over again, Mr. Moore is the only artist of the present day who thoroughly understands the beauty of soft flowing raiment, and joins to this the most exquisite sense of delicate colour" (793).
However, a critic for The Illustrated London News gave a mixed review to this painting, lamenting both its handling and colour, thinking Moore was capable of doing more:
All the disappointing slightness of handling which so conspicuously mark the productions of Mr. A. Moore are visible in his delightful yet inadequate Reader (469). If we prefer against this accomplished master that reproach of inadequacy we do so without in the slightest degree disparaging either his genius or his power. The first is unmistakably manifest in every touch of his pencil; but the last, through the paleness of his chiaroscuro and the attenuation of his colour, he only allows us to guess at or to suspect. Tintoretto might paint fans for ladies once in a way; and there is no harm in Giorgione stooping now and again to conquer fame by the execution of a miniature; but one would not have liked to see the great Venetian masters always occupied by such trifles; and ceteris paribus [all other things being equal], the same remark may be applied to Mr. Moore. [563]
A reviewer for The Graphic rightly considered Moore a leader of the so-called "decorative school": "We need not be surprised nor distressed that the exhibition contains a very small proportion of pictures addressed to their sympathies ['high-aesthetical' gentlemen]. Among those that are so addressed comes first the Reader of Mr. A. Moore (469), a young lady in a robe flowered with light red, and a muslin wrapper over it, reading in what appears to be a Japanese book (this queer mixture of Greek and Japanese being one of the 'badges' of the 'decorative' school)" (478).
Bibliography
Asleson, Robyn. Albert Moore. London: Phaidon, 2000. 140-41.
Baldry, Alfred Lys. Albert Moore: His Life and Works. London: George Bell and Sons, 1894. 47.
Hedberg, Gregory. "Albert Moore." The Victorian High Renaissance. London: Lund Humphries, 1978, cat. 78, 149.
Nineteenth Century European Paintings and Drawings. London: Sotheby's (19 June 1990): lot 54, 104-05.
The Other Nineteenth Century. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1978. 154.
A Reader. Art UK. Web. 2 September 2026.
Rossetti, William Michael. "Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator L (23 June 1877): 792-93.
"Royal Academy Exhibition." The Illustrated London News LXX (16 June 1877): 563.
Stephens, Frederic George: "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2587 (26 May 1877): 675-78.
Wedmore, Frederic. "Some Tendencies in Recent Painting." Temple Bar LIII (July 1878): 334-48.
Created 2 September 2026