Provenance
(Possibly Marie-Antoine Didot sale, Galerie le Brun, Paris, 27 December 1796, no. 63).[1] Art market, Switzerland, 1978;[2] (Galerie Kurt Meissner, Zurich, with its pendant, 2025.29.2); private collection. (Galerie Eric Coatalem, Paris); purchased 2025 by NGA.
[1] Lot 63 was described as “Deux jeunes Amants occupés á relire leurs lettres” (two young lovers rereading their letters). As measurements were not given, it is not possible to confirm whether this was 2025.29.1 or another, smaller, version that is in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
[2] According to Kurt Meissner, Marcel Roethlisberger; and Werner Sumowski, _Kurt Meissner: Gemälde und Zeichnungen aus sechzig Jahren Kunsthandel_, Zurich, 2003: 58.
Accession Number
2025.29.1
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 45 × 55 cm (17 11/16 × 21 5/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Edwin L. Cox – Ed Cox Foundation, Chester Dale Fund, and Patrons' Permanent Fund
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas French Color: Orange
Background & Context
Background Story
Marguerite Gerard (1761-1837) was a French painter known for her genre scenes of domestic life in the precisely observed, intimate manner that distinguishes her best work from the more anecdotal genre painting of her contemporaries. I Reread Them with Pleasure from 1788-89 depicts a woman reading love letters in the precisely observed, domestic manner that makes Gerard one of the most accomplished female painters of the 18th century. The 1788-89 date places this in Gerard's most productive period, when she was producing the domestic genre scenes that are her most accomplished works, and the reading subject allows her to exercise her talent for depicting the private, domestic life of 18th-century French women.
Cultural Impact
I Reread Them with Pleasure is important in the history of French genre painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, domestic manner that Gerard brought to the genre of women's private life. Gerard's domestic genre scenes show the private, domestic life of 18th-century French women with a precision and intimacy that her male contemporaries rarely achieved, creating a type of genre painting that is simultaneously observed and intimate—a type that only a female painter could create with such accuracy.
Why It Matters
I Reread Them with Pleasure is Gerard's intimate domestic genre: a woman reading love letters rendered with the precisely observed intimacy that makes her one of the most accomplished female painters of the 18th century. The 1788-89 painting shows the private, domestic life of French women with an accuracy that only a female painter could achieve.
