In this companion to Stefan Bollmann's Women Who Read Are Dangerous, German art historian and curator Karin Sagner explores another aspect of the advent of the modern woman. Little more than two hundred years ago women began to discover a new sense of freedom, adventure, and self-determination simply by walking in public unaccompanied, and male artists were fascinated. From the late 18th to the early 20th century, painters like Thomas Gainsborough, Gustave Courbet, Gustave Caillebotte, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Félix Vallotton rendered striking images of independently mobile women—seen here in vivid reproductions up to 16 inches across—which Sagner counterpoints with quotes by such notable women as the Marquise de Sévigné, Jane Austen, and Simone de Beauvoir.

"Women Walking is a work of art, the stunning paintings nothing short of intoxicating. The history of women for the first time finding freedom, by walking the countryside and grand parks of Europe—not to mention climbing the treacherous peaks of Mont Blanc in entirely impractical clothing—is both captivating and entirely timely, given today's growing walking trends."—Diana Nyad