Marianne Lavergne, die Nichte des Malers (Die schöne Leserin)

Die schöne Leserin—the beautiful reader—is one of Liotard's most celebrated works, depicting his young niece Marianne Lavergne absorbed in reading, her attention entirely on the pages in her hands rather than the viewer. Now in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the 1746 oil on canvas painting represents a significant moment in the representation of women as readers: rather than displaying a book as a social accessory, the young woman is genuinely absorbed in her text, her concentration private and complete. The Dresden Kunstsammlungen holds this as one of its prized eighteenth-century works. Reading as a depicted activity was central to Enlightenment ideals of self-improvement and rational pleasure, and depicting a young woman in unselfconscious absorption in a book carried positive connotations of intelligence and cultivation. That the sitter is Liotard's own niece adds an intimacy to the image that a commissioned portrait would not necessarily possess.

Oil on canvas: the downward tilt of the reader's face and the fall of light across the open pages create an unusual lighting arrangement—illumination from below-right rather than the more conventional above-left. This creates the characteristic glow of light reflected from white paper onto a bent face.