This intimate painting of a woman reading is a personal portrait of the artist's wife in her favorite pastime, reading. The work is believed to have been lost in a flood in San Marcos, in the 1980s.

Night Reading portrays a domestic scene: a woman asleep with a book, bathed in cool twilight. Luminous brushwork and a restrained tonal palette echo Whistler’s nocturnes, while the intimate composition and quiet domesticity recall Vermeer; the soft modeling of face and fabric shows a subtle Caravaggio-like chiascuro. The work emphasizes close detail and the calm of a late-night ritual, a personal work diffused with a subtle, soothing mood.