"Madame Monet Reading "Le Figaro"
by VOORT, Michiel van der, the Elder, Oil on canvas, 54 x 72 cm
In this small private portrait it would seem the painter surprised Madame Monet at home in Argenteuil, lying on the sofa reading the paper. Without troubling to adopt any more formal pose, she is gazing calmly at the artist with her fine, dark eyes. This was a natural, unstudied scene precisely observed.