La leggitrice (Girl Reading)

"La Leggitrice" by Pietro Magni depicts a young girl reading on an old-fashioned chair, captured within the intimacy of a domestic setting. The sculpture clearly evokes the model created by Francesco Hayez, taking the strongly accented naturalism of the "Preghiera del Mattino" (Morning Prayer) by Vincenzo Vela—which this work seems to echo—to its logical conclusion.
This work represents one of the most significant moments in 19th-century Lombard figurative evolution, which distanced itself from the academic style by elaborating a new language—the lexicon of the sculptural school, the so-called Milan School, to which Pietro Magni was a chief contributor—and also represents a new generation of artists.
It was presented for the first time at the annual Brera Exhibition in 1856, passing by mostly unnoticed. The more progressive Milan-based critics came out against it, led by Rovani, harshly criticizing the passive reinterpretation of Hayez' model and its overly faithful recreation. However, it was met with surprising success 5 years later at the First National Exhibition of Florence in 1861, where the artist presented a different version—in this, the woman carried an effigy of Garibaldi at her neck and a poem dedicated to the hero impressed on the volume she holds.
The hugely successful, award-winning piece was purchased by the Ministry of Education, who sent it to Turin. They also asked the artist to create a number of replicas, one of which was donated to the Brera Academy, and another which was sent to London in 1862, before joining the National Gallery of Washington. Magni did his best to meet the extraordinary demand he received for commissions, based on the unexpected success of the work at exhibitions, as evidenced by its display at a number of major events of this kind, including Paris in 1867, Vienna in 1873, Santiago in Chile in 1875, and Philadelphia in 1876.