Georges Lemmen, born in Belgium in 1865, trained at the academy in St. Joost-ten-Node. In 1889 he was invited to join the Cercle des XX (Group of Twenty), which had been launched in 1884 by Oscar Maus and had in the interim emerged as an influential force in Belgian artistic circles, not least by bringing to public and critical attention the work of artists such as Seurat and Signac. The Cercle des XX would be reborn in 1894 as La Libre Esthétique (Free Aesthetic).

Lemmen’s earlier painting had been clearly influenced by the Neo-Impressionists but with the group’s rebirth in 1894, Lemmen’s work became more intimiste in character, most notably in his portraits, nudes and still-lifes, where the influence of Bonnard and Vuillard is unmistakable.

‘Young woman reading’ depicts Georges Lemmen’s wife. She was one of his favourite subjects and he often painted his family. This is a beautifully sensitive work that manages to maintain an essential purity and elegance of line, whilst emitting in its paint a fleshy and intimate tone.