The painting depicts Berthe Morisot's mother, Marie-Joséphine, and her favourite sister, Edma Pontillon. Since the beginning of their artistic career, the two sisters had learned their art together. However, in 1869 her sister got married and gave up painting at the insistence of her husband. In this painting, Edma was pregnant with her first child. Unlike her friend Édouard Manet, who found it difficult to get his works accepted, Morisot was able to exhibit this painting at the Salon, along with The Harbor at Lorient, something that she was doing since 1864, and that would last until 1874, when she joined the first impressionist exhibition with her work, The Cradle. This work received a positive review, despite being a "feminine painting". After her death, the work ceased to be exhibited. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that it began to interest the experts. Two characters are depicted in the work, Edma Pontillon, Berthe's sister, and Mme. Morisot. As it was common in the painting of women artists, the subjects represented are domestic scenes or landscapes, as well as self-portraits or still life. In this case, we can see the artist's mother reading a book, an activity that gives the painting its original title, and her sister appears with a pensive expression. During this time, Edma was pregnant with her first child, and surely her thoughts were focused on the loss of having to put her married life before her devotion to painting. In one of the constant letters that she exchanged with Berthe, she wrote her: "I am often with you, dear Berthe, in spirit; I'm in your studio and I'd love to get away for just a quarter of an hour so I can breathe in the atmosphere we've lived in for years." She was trying to complement family life and art for a while, but, as she told her sister, it was impossible, as she was often too tired even to paint a small canvas. Berthe was also in a moment of crisis; despite her great personal consideration, the art world did not make it easy for women artists.

Van Gogh was seeking respite from plaguing depression at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy in southern France when he painted The Starry Night. It reflects his direct observations of his view of the countryside from his window as well as the memories and emotions this view evoked in him. The Starry Night is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village. The Moon is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that it actually was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture,[15"> and even if the phase of the Moon had been its waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh's Moon would not have been astronomically correct. (For other interpretations of the Moon, see below.) The one pictorial element that was definitely not visible from Van Gogh's cell is the village.