The Maidstone bath or The modern Susanna / Candaules invenit. ; Gyges fecit.

Image not available
The Maidstone bath or The modern Susanna / Candaules invenit. ; Gyges fecit.
etching
image: 265 x 260 mm (circular); sheet: 270 x 265 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2362
Published: 
London : Publish'd as the Act directs, March 12th 1782, N° 28 at the Ancient and Modern Print Warehouse, Hay Market, [1782]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Title from description of an intact impression of the print in the British Museum online catalog.
Library's copy closely trimmed to the circular image, with loss of caption title and imprint.

Summary: 

A stone building in which a bath is sunk in the floor. A young woman (Lady Worsley) stands in it, the water just above her knees. An attendant stands behind her holding a towel, both look up, the attendant with alarm, at the face of a man (Captain Bisset) looking through one of two oval apertures (right) high up in the wall. In front of and below the bath is the upper part of a flight of spiral steps leading to high iron bars at right angles to the wall at the end of the bath, through which is seen Sir Richard Worsley holding Captain Bisset on his shoulders. This part of the design is in shadow. The attendant is an attractive young woman wearing a hat. The lady's clothes and hat are heaped on a chair behind her. On the wall above the bath is a tap and below it a small basin built into the wall. Cf. British Museum online catalog.

Century: 
Classification: 
Department: