Letters in Painting: Henry John Hudson

Neaera Reading a Letter from Catullus (1894) by Henry John Hudson

Henry John Hudson (1862-1911), British portrait and genre painter, captured here Neaera while reading a letter from Catullus (1st century BC), a Roman poet. Curiously enough, this letter is a scroll. I was surprised to find out that a scroll was also usually divided up into pages, which were separate sheets of papyrus or parchment glued together at the edges. The scroll was usually unrolled so that one page was exposed at a time for reading, with the remaining pages rolled up to the left and right, the way Neaera is holding it in the painting.