THE READING WOMAN MARCH 2020

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THE READING WOMAN

MARCH 2020

And already I’m turning over a new page on the calendar. The third month has come along as a surprise without me blinking an eye.

The Afternoon Rest.

John Morgan (British, 1823-1886). Oil on canvas.

John Morgan, a skilled painter of crowd scenes and a very successful Victorian artist. He loved to paint scene’s with children playing and many of these are in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection in London. As a young man was apprenticed to a business which designed frames and furniture. He studied at the School of Design at Somerset House, and later spent some time in Paris as a pupil of Couture and Delaroche.

The young woman in this painting is reading a book of poetry, and is about to turn to a new page, when she looks off to her left. Her lovely chestnut hair accentuating the paleness of her skin. The bright blue cushion adds some depth to the pale pink of her blouse. I wonder if left for a while longer she may have closed her eyes for a moment or two. I love the delicate flowers on her skirt with that touch of pale mauve and blue. Then there’s the fine almost gossamer like scarf around her neck with such tiny fragile pink flowers. There looks to be a cloak or some kind of mantle folded over the arm of her chair in rather autumnal colours, that is also picked up in the wallpaper.

The quote for March comes from the writer of the Harry Potter fantasy books J K Rowling.

“When I’m really stressed or overwhelmed I turn to biographies of people who’ve led turbulent lives. I find it soothing to read about people who’ve endured and overcome.”

She is also a film and television producer, Screenwriter and philanthropist. I have been enjoying a series of crime stories set in London, that she has written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. featuring the private detective Cormoran Strike, Really great reading, loving every word

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