La lecture The drawing is the study for the painting Woman Reading in which the painter's wife is portrayed intent on reading under the light of an oil lamp. In the drawing, as in the painting, what is striking is the intimate, serene, participatory atmosphere of the person portrayed. The white highlights perfectly render the feeling of the light concentrating on the book, creating a kind of estrangement from the world around it. Esteemed by the Impressionist artists who, like Boudin and Jongkind, considered him one of their forerunners, Cals, although invited to the official Salons, never disdained to participate, at Monet's invitation, in the Impressionist exhibitions starting with the first in 1874 at Nadar's.