Young Girl Reading

A young girl sits indoors, pausing in her reading (probably of the Bible) to smile at the viewer. Judging by her dress and the rural setting, the girl is of peasant origin. This scene captures both the perceived innocence of childhood and an idyllic fiction of country life, notions that appealed to bourgeois city dwellers seeking respite from the turmoil and pressures of a rapidly industrializing world. Indeed, the emerging middle class brought great success to painters like Meyer von Bremen, whose sentimental anecdotes spoke of stability even in the midst of tremendous change.