From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
In this painting of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter reading a book, Picasso returns to a favored subject: a woman seated alone. The darkened room and glow from the lamp give her an ethereal presence, while her alabaster skin, blonde hair, and floral crown enhance her youth. Though she featured prominently in Picasso’s work at the time, their relationship was the least public of Picasso’s many amatory alliances, a fact that imbues this painting with a sense of tender intimacy. The canvas, one of several similar compositions Picasso painted of his mistress, is a poem by a man in love.