The Little Abbot Reading the Ramayana

A young figure with curled dark hair and a pleated white collar sits at a table, bending over an open book whose pages the reader touches with one hand. Rendered in charcoal and black chalk with stumping and erasing on tan paper, the soft tones fade into a shadowy background.

Artist

Odilon Redon

Date

1883

Medium

Charcoal with black chalk, stumping, scraping and erasing, on dark cream wove paper, discolored to tan. Ruled in pale red-orange pastel. Off

Source

Art Institute of Chicago

Size

1686 × 2293 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): Art Institute of Chicago, David Adler Collection