I'm guessing it may have been artistic license to make the subject appear more absorbed in the book.

I'm sure studies have been done on reading distance as that info is important when making reading glasses and bifocals.

Recently I was talking to my optometrist about my bifocals and he mentioned "arm's length or slightly less" as a typical reading distance, although when I was younger I typically held books a little closer than that because I was nearsighted.

...it may have been artistic license...

That seems unlikely.
Here are some more cut-outs of readers by Duttenhofer:

http://abstracts.iovs.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/5/1184

I'm too lazy, but was tempted to redo Nick's silhouettes with ipads or kindles, to bring it up to date.

Perhaps it was just a question of vision impairment? I assume that corrective lenses in those days were not as sophisticated as today. It also may be that vanity prevented some people from wearing glasses? (Particularly those who were romance minded)

Some more random reading images from art history. The distances vary.
I'd guess the coming of electric light had an impact on practices indoors.

Nice collection of images, Craig.

Perhaps it was just a question of vision impairment?

That would only apply to the 20% of the population who are sufficiently impacted by short sightedness and stigmatism to warrant reading closely, and many of those would use glasses. The lenses to fix simple short/long sightedness are quite simple, e.g. they can be bought off the rack at chemists/drug stores today. So AFAIK they were readily available in the 19th century and earlier.

It would seem that reading distance is multivalent, related to individual physiology, reading position (chair/desk/standing), document scale (page/type size), text genre (difficulty of language), document genre (balance of text/image) and lighting conditions.

I always liked the way Schubert rocked the wire-frame look.

Apparently so!

I always liked Dimitry Schostakovich's glasses.

I spent a very pleasant afternoon going around the Sainsbury Wing of the National Galley in London, where the mediaeval and early renaissance works are shown, looking for depictions of people reading (or in the case of so many depictions of the Annuniciation, interrupted while reading). There are an extraordinary number, many more proportionally, I recall, than in the collection of later works.

I hadn't thought about it much before, but realise that I tend to hold books quite close. On the other hand, I hold newspapers at arms' length, and have my computer monitor even further away.

Apparently so!

I think the real small frames look way cool, but will stick with my present shape and size, which correspond with my field of vision in the fullest, most unobtrusive manner. I don't get why people will wear heavy square frames, but I guess it's like high heels, they will put up with user inconvenience if they think it makes them look suave.

...I hold newspapers at arms' length...

Nasty things!

I agree, Nick. I found the perfect frames for my vision 4 years ago and fear they will be "oh so last decade" that I will never find them again!

Craig: semi-nude lady reading book--awesome!

In the bosom of knowledge, Bill?

Probably Byron.

I feel that in a lot of 'eliason' collection, that the readers are depicted needing to use the hands to scan the lines. Maybe a bit uncomfortable at these distances?

Lousy glasses & flickering candle light
make the gap twixt reader and book um, tight.

Add an artist that makes you sit still for hours on end, Russel. ;-)

A melodic baseline.

Eugh! Shostakovich's glasses look like they were nicked from a skip behind the NHS!

After a quick search: Old, but of potential interest.

Menozzi, M., Rehor, M. & Studeli, T. (2003). Font size and reading comfort (Proceedings paper, Annual Spring Conference of the GfA/17th Annual Conference of the International Society for Occupational Ergonomics and Safety) Munich, Germany. 135–138.

Abstract
An experiment was run, in which 23 subjects rated six text of different font size. Ratings were carried out using a presentation on paper as well as a presentation on a cathode ray tube display at a viewing distance of 50 cm. Most preferred font size was 14 pt in the paper presentation and 13 pt in the presentation on display. Preferred size convert to about a letter size of 23.9' and 22.6'.