''The Reading Room'' (German: ''Das Lesekabinett'') is an 1843 painting by the

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

-based painter

Johann Peter Hasenclever Johann Peter Hasenclever (18 May 1810, Remscheid - 16 December 1853, Düsseldorf) was a German Genre art, genre painter, associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. Life and work His father, Johann Peter Hasenclever (1784–1864), was a to ...

, now in the

Alte Nationalgalerie The Alte Nationalgalerie ( ''Old National Gallery'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. The gallery was built from 1862 to 1876 by the order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia according to ...

in Berlin. It shows a genre scene of middle-class men in a reading room, reflecting the political and cultural situation of the

Vormärz ' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after ...

period. A smaller copy is now in the Städtische Museum Remscheid (Haus Cleff in Remscheid-Hasten).Knut Soiné, ''Johann Peter Hasenclever'', Neustadt an der Aisch, 1990 (German)

References

1843 paintings German paintings Paintings in the Alte Nationalgalerie Group portraits by German artists {{1840s-painting-stub