Newspaper Readers in Naples

Newspaper Readers in Naples is a painting by the Russian artist Orest Kiprensky (1782–1836), painted in 1831. It belongs to the State Tretyakov Gallery (inv. 5100). The size of the painting is 64.5 × 78.3 cm. It is titled Readers of Newspaper, Newspaper Readers in Italy, Reading a Newspaper, Travelers Reading the Gazette de France and others. The painting is a group portrait of four men, one reading a newspaper and the others listening. The nationality of the figures in the painting has been interpreted differently by various researchers of Kiprensky's work: they have been called either Russian or Polish.

The painting was created by Kiprensky in 1831 in Naples, commissioned by Count Dmitri Sheremetev. In 1832 the canvas was exhibited in Rome, and in 1833 it was presented at the exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. In general, the painting was a success: the president of the Academy of Arts, Alexey Olenin, wrote to Kiprensky that his works, "and especially Travelers, delighted the spectators, whose flock was extraordinary". The painting was part of the collection of Dmitry Sheremetev, and then — of Feodor Pryanishnikov. In 1867 it came to the collection of the Rumyantsev Museum and in 1925 to the Tretyakov Gallery.

Art historian Dmitry Sarabyanov noted the "genre connotation" of Newspaper Readers in Naples and considered the essential advantage of the fact that the images of the people depicted in the painting are "treated truthfully, without embellishments," and the plot chosen by Kiprensky "does not provoke that sentimental idealization that is so typical of his later 'Italian genres'". For the Russian Museum chief curator Yevgeniya Petrova, the canvas is more than just a group portrait because "the theme is solved in a multifaceted way."