Getting Naked With the Wenches, Part II

Still inspired by Kay's question about whether or not 19th century ladies (and their earlier sisters) got naked for bathing, the Wenches continue:

SS: While the current crop of misbehaving Hollywood actresses seem to believe they invented the art of revealing too much, nude pictures of celebrity women are hardly new.  There's a 1570 portrait by Clouet of Diane de Poitiers, the favorite of the French King Henry II, that shows her quite unabashedly naked (and in a draped tub, too.) 

My historical novels are set in 17th century England, during the reign of Charles II.  For the first time women were allowed on the English stage, and those actresses were also quick to exploit their celebrity by having themselves painted with bared breasts, or even entirely nude -- something no respectable lady would dream of doing.  Even among the royal mistresses, there was a hierarchy of how much was revealed.  If you'd moved from the stage to the palace (like Nell Gwyn or Moll Davis), then you could pretty much display all your wares in your portraits.  But if you were a lady by birth (like the Countess of Castlemaine, my heroine in Royal Harlot, shown over there on the right as some sort of quasi-goddess), you were painted fully covered, but without any undergarments beneath that thin layer of silk and with breasts threatening to tumble out, so that very little was left to the imagination.

Here's a painting by Sir Peter Lely of Nell Gwyn as Venus. She was an actress, and common-born mistress to Charles II, which gave her two excuses to be shown nude. Not only did the king hang this painting in his dressing chamber where the queen unhappily saw it, but Nell invited a small crowd of male friends to drop in to the artist's studio while she was posing. A popular girl, Nell.  I can think of other royal mistresses painted in various degrees of undress as well as ladies coyly playing at being goddesses in revealing drapery, but I can't think of any men, gentlemen or rogues, who had their portraits done sans clothes.  Can anyone else?

MJP: Not that I can think of.  But in that era, men were pretty much power and money objects, not sex objects.  Portraits would show their wealth, not their probably flabby abs.

JO:I'm pretty sure I've seen a couple of portraits done in classical robes, probably late 18th century, but I can't find any now. Anyone know any?

SS:  I did think of a prominent male who liked being naked, and he sure wasn't a royal mistress.  Supposedly American founding father Benjamin Franklin was a great believer in "air baths": each morning upon rising, he would remove all his clothes and sit in the middle of his bedchamber for an hour with as much fresh air as he could tolerate, depending on the season.  No visual on that, please! *g*

Jo: Definitely not. There are plenty of almost naked Renaissance men, of course, especially representing gods. Venus and Adonis? This one is by Goltzius, 1614. Not quite naked, but the sort of thing an upper class lady could see on the walls of her family's home. 

But real people, ever noticed how few young hunks had their portraits painted? When they were older, they weren't about to expose their wrinkly flesh and flab, were they?

I have a late 18th century, I think, French print of swimmers where the men are wearing shorts that look painted on over nakedness. Actually, I have references to men bathing naked in Brighton, which is why the male beach was off limits, and also why telescopes were popular with the ladies. I think they stopped it by the Regency period, but at least one man did it anyway in protest.

As I understand it, men generally swam naked.

SS: Here's one of the more famous 19th century paintings of naked guys swiming, by Thomas Eakins.  They were Americans, but I imagine there's not much national difference. *g*

PR: My thoughts exactly. It's not as if historically men watched their waists, and outside of the few young bucks at Gentleman Jackson's, there wasn't much in the way of gyms. So that big shirt hid a multitude of sins but could quickly drown an inexperienced swimmer.

Despite culture, people are people. If it was hot, I assume they'd strip down in privacy unless they wanted to hide their flaws from their partners or---mostly in the case of women, I suspect, but not entirely---unless they were excessively modest.  It's not nakedness but modesty and how one feels about one's body that predicts the cultural norm.  If one is surrounded by servants, a modest tent of cloth of some type might be required by an upper class woman, an older woman, or one raised to be modest about her body. A woman in the habit of following sheep into the river to shear them is not likely to be as modest as a woman who has never allowed anyone to see her in anything less than silk or lace.

And just think about male hang ups!  Ones that think they're excessively well-endowed are probably much more likely to jump naked into the river on a hot summer day and encourage others to do the same. But that "hot summer day" bit precludes most of England, most of the time, so the temptation simply wouldn't be there often.

Personally, considering how many times a day the upper classes changed clothes, I'd think they'd get excessively tired of it after a while. And if bathing wasn't a convenient option, why bother stripping? I think we'd have to investigate sexual attitudes, preferences, and knowledge in historical periods just to see if they even bothered with much foreplay.  Really, we've been applying our own modern concept of sex to our historicals, but the truth is probably far cruder in normal cases outside the Don Juan types.

SS: Ah, I did think of another! There's a larger-than-lifesize statue of George Washington by Horatio Greenough in the Smithsonian that shows the first president bare-chested and classically heroic (if more than a little silly.)

Jo: That need to put great men in a classical context could lead to peculiarities, couldn't it? *G* I think that having servants would take some of the edge off a fixation on modesty per se. I mean, would a woman really go behind a screen rather than change her shift in front of one or two maids? Very few, I'd guess.

And as well as paintings, they were surrounded by all those classical statues. I used that element in my first book, Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed, where Jane had been raised quietly and modestly in a strictly Christian home. Her first look at a classical statue was quite a shock.

This all depends on the period, of course. We've always got to be very careful not to impose Victorianisms onto the Regency. We have so much more primary material from that era. It did take a very weird turn.

Much of the Regency was closer to the Georgian than the Victorian, especially in the upper class.

LC:  I do agree with this.  I think there's confusion with the Victorian period because our doyenne of the Regency was Georgette Heyer, writing from the late Victorian/Edwardian POV.

SS: You're totally right, Loretta. Modern readers often forget that Heyer is writing about the past from her time period, and her pov is inevitably filtered through it -- the curse of every writer writing about a time other than her own. Jane Austen, writing during and about her own time, is far less squeamish.

MJP: As for nakedish males in paintings--SK, can you think of any? Maybe among the Pre-Raphaelites?  As an example of the opposite, I'm thinking of a well known late-19th century painting (I think) that shows a mixed group picnicking by a pond, and the men are in full Edwardian gear and the women are naked, IIRC.  Most men--and most male painters--like looking at and painting nekkidy females.

SS: I'm not sure if this was meant to be an art history exam-question or not, but I'll bite.  The painting you mean must be "Dejeuner sur l'herbe" by Manet, and in fact it did cause a huge scandal when it was first shown.  One of the men was Manet's brother, another artist, and the  woman was Manet's favorite model, so as I recall this was supposed to be a picnic-break in the middle of painting.  So at least she has a reason for being naked -- though of course there are few careers further beyond the respectable pale than being an artist's model.

MJP: Ah, that's the one!  Thank you.  I figured one of the art historians would know it.  But I'm not buying that she had a reason to be naked other than the fact that's what the artist wanted.

SS: Nor do I.  The artists are male and the patrons are male, so of course there are going to be many more naked women than naked men.  ::sigh::

MJP: Hmm, interesting. I went to Google to see a larger image of the painting, and I see that the woman in the background is in a shift, albeit more or less transparent.  Perhaps that supports the theory that even when swimming or bathing, women were usually covered. Looking at the picture, I can't help thinking that, depending on the weather, either the women are going to be cold or the men are going to feel hot with all those clothes on....

SS: OK, Regency-writers, I'll ask your opinion on a notorious naked vs. clothed question. What about the Regency women who supposedly dowsed their muslin gowns with water to make them transparent to the point of nudity?  True, or only historical gossip?

JO: Exaggeration, at least. Like many fashion extremes, one person does it, and later people think everyone did. We only have to look at fashion magazines today to see that it's not exactly representing normal dress.

LC:  From ENGLISHWOMEN’S CLOTHING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY “When the first engravings of the Grecian costume--as nudity was called--were brought to England, they shocked every modest woman; and it was not thought proper to look at them in the presence of gentlemen.”  They do not identify the quotation source, saying only that it was written retrospectively in 1818.

The Cunningtons do make the point elsewhere that some hysterical references to shocking fashions are not reliable--shocked people can exaggerate--and I do suspect the damped muslins is an urban myth, though maybe one or two "fast women" or harlots did it.  Also, they and other costume experts point out that the Grecian or “classical” style of clothing (that we consider Regency style) certainly did look like nudity compared to the dress of previous decades.  Here’s an illustrative print.

PR: The wenches will get down and dirty--or squeaky clean--on Friday, the final part of our naked dialogue.  But I can't resist Loretta's comment above--shocked people can exaggerate. Boy, can they ever! They say "damn" in GWTW! They write sex scenes in romances! What other "shocking" references can you think of?

Comments

[Michelle Styles]

Umm, did anyone mention the naked statue of Napoleon? Rather larger than life. It now resides in Aspley house in the foyer as you go up the stairs to the Waterloo Banquet Room.

Of course there is the famous statue of the naked Achilles behind Welington's house -- made from captured cannon and given by the Women of England to honour Wellington.

Then there is Brummell. He designed his trousers to show off and flatter his body -- taking his cue from Classic Roman and Greek sculpture/vases. If you look at his drawings in his one published book in Male and Female Costume (1822) you will get the general idea.

And the damping down of dresses -- it would depend wouldn't it? The Regency Cyprian balls were notorious for all sorts of behaviour...

Georgette Heyer was writing during a very specific time and her novels reflect the attidues more of her own comtemporary time than thye necessarily do of the Regency -- although her son did tel my dh that his mother lived and breathed the Regency.

FWIW

[MJ]

My goodness....am I ever learning this week! This is fascinating....I await the next installment with bated breath....

[AgTigress]

I was going to mention the nude statue of Napoleon, but Michelle beat me to it!

The idea of 'heroic nudity' (of males) was a fundamental concept in Graeco-Roman art: many of the gods and heroes were routinely depicted nude or near-nude (e.g. a cloak floating rather vaguely around the shoulders).

Depicting a Roman Emperor naked in ancient sculpture did not mean that he wandered around starkers in real life, any more than a modern political leader would. It was a symbolic statement of the fact that he had heroic, superhuman qualities and status, and could therefore be shown as a semi-divine being. This thinking was picked up to some degree in neo-Classical art - hence the nude Napoleon. Portrait statues of important persons in Classical armour, or wearing the toga, were even more common in the late 18th/early 19th, and alluded to the same ideological links with the Graeco-Roman past which came so strongly to the fore during the Enlightenment.

:-)

[AgTigress]

I couldn't find a really good picture of Canova's heroic Napoleon, but this one isn't too bad:
http://www.scudit.net/md2006_file/napoleonemarte.jpg

[patrice mandelli]

Pat Rice in disguise again---

Great Napoleon image! I was frantically finishing proposals while most of this conversation was happening, and since I have no art historian background to fall back on, I just happily followed the links around. When was the Napoleon statue completed? Surely in more Victorian times, when the ladies must have had to cover their eyes!

[shscott21]

Many thanks, AGTigress, for your addition of the Canova link! Certainly a heroic view of Napoleon, if perhaps a bit idealized.

It's interesting to note that when 17th-19th century "great men" are shown in classical garb (or lack thereof), the costume is intended to show that the subjects possess all the same heroic qualities of past generals and mythical leaders -- that they're all equals. That's Napoleon in his own right, no further explanation needed (except sans clothes), not Napoleon as Mars, or Hannibal, or whomever.

But when ladies of every sort (whether mistresses, princesses, or Napoleon's sisters) are dressed in classical attire for their portraits, they tend to be "Lady XYZ as Athena" -- granting the goddess's attributes to the sitter by association. It's as if the qualities can be put on along with the flowing drapery.

Anyway -- in a similar neo-classical vein -- we could include the strange form-fitting armor and stage costumes that replicated nudity for heroic purposes, too. All those 17th century French masque costumes that gave courtiers the instant physiques of Hercules!

An example of such cheerful optomism here, in "The Sea Triumph of Charles II." http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/egallery/object.asp?category=AAPICTURES&object=406173&row=272

[Ingrid]

I found this portrait of Charles II's Queen, Catherine of Braganza, depicted with half naked breasts just like Lady Castlemaine. Low necklines were an aristocratic privilege.

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp00804&rNo=16&role=sit

Being depicted without proper underclothes was just the fashion of the time. A Dutch art historian, Irene Groeneweg, wrote a very interesting article about this practice of being painted in indeterminate pieces of fabric invented by the painter instead of actual clothes. She coined the term 'portrait costume' for this fashion which flourished between 1670 and 1730. It was supposed to look 'antique' in the Greek and Roman sense, and was to prevent your dress from looking silly and outdated in ten years time. It turns out the style of drapery evolved as well, and hairstyles were a dead giveaway.
Men did the antique look by wearing armour, and the drapery effect by wearing the very expensive and exotic banyans that were just then being imported from the Far East.

I remember reading somewhere about someone trying to damp an original muslin dress and just getting an uncomfortable, soggy mess - I think it was the pioneer costume collector Doris Langley Moore, but I couldn't quote you chapter and verse.

I also saw a programme on the BBC a couple of years back which said that the Victorians had no problem with nudity, as long as it was properly mythological and hairless. They showed that Queen Victoria saw paintings of naked men and women every day of her life, especially in Osborne House, which she chose and furnished herself.

[RevMelinda]

Susan/Sarah, I love that statue of George Washington! It was a major meeting place for us on childhood trips to the Smithsonian. . .

A little off topic (sigh), I have a book at home that a guy gave to me in seminary--it features lots of glossy reproductions of religious paintings which display Christ's--uh--manly assets in a very--uh--upstanding way. (Standing up for Jesus, LOL)

Is there any of this in the kind of paintings you've talked about here?

[Jo Beverley]

My goodness, RevMelinda, you've just given me a whole new image of a seminary!

I don't know how we all missed the naked Napoleon. Great example. And interesting about Queen Victoria and naked art. Of course, she wasn't by nature at all prudish. It was Albert who imposed that sort of thing.

Jo

[shscott21]

"Standing up for Jesus": Oh, RevMelinda, I wish you could add links to these illustrations -- LOL!

I'm glad you liked the George Washington sculpture, too -- I felt he had to have a place in this blog. No matter how dramatically it's lit in the Smithsonian, that sculpture still makes school groups tee-hee. I always remember the "unofficial" caption to it, too: "You take the sword, Martha, while I go upstairs to dress."
Susan/Miranda

[AgTigress]

Pat: the Canova Napoleon is firmly pre-Victorian - Canova's dates were 1757-1822.
:-)

[shscott21]

Thanks for your comments about dressing and undressing for 17th century portraits, Ingrid. Yes, it was the style to be painted (and to wear) very low-cut gowns/drapery such as in the portrait of Catherine of Braganza. (Poor Catherine! She was always playing catch-up with the mistresses, and never could quite figure out the rules.) My guess is that, given her repressive upbringing, she was more at ease dressed in less revealing clothing. (http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?maker=LELYP&object=401214&row=3)

It's fascinating how the un-dress of this kind of portrait marks another kind of class distinction: "I'm so rich and noble that I can sit before you dressed so casually, while you, little person, must be properly, formally dressed to be in my presence."

But though the queen's neckline is low, it's not nearly as revealing as the ones favored by the racier set (like this one of Diana Kirke: http://www.dmca.yale.edu/bacpoe/eden/exhibition/paintings/B1981-25-756.html)
And though the queen is painted in the usual flowing drapery instead of a gown, she's clearly wearing stays beneath it. The tops of her breasts are bared, but there's no indiction of her belly, hips, or navel, which definitely show in the paintings of the "bad girls." All a matter of degree, I guess!

For a couple of more books that explore the real body vs. corsetted body in portraits, check out Anne Hollander's "Seeing Through Clothes" http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Through-Clothes-Anne-Hollander/dp/0520082311/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-2824038-0536126?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179952886&sr=1-1

And more on the Stuart Court portraits in the catalogue to a recent exhibition sponsored jointly by Yale and the NPG:
http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Ladies-Women-Court-Charles/dp/1855143216/ref=sr_1_13/102-2824038-0536126?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179952822&sr=1-13

Susan/Miranda

[RobynL]

what interesting tidbits about nudity and almost all are new to me. I have learnt a lot today. Thanks.

[LorettaChase]

Oooh, Painted Ladies is a mouthwatering book, Susan/Miranda. But how do I justify Restoration era research?

[Queen Bee]

Susan-Miranda, I hope you'll be blogging about the cover for your Royal Harlot soon.I remember the blog you wrote about your Duchess cover last year, and I'm looking forward to the story behind the next book's cover.

Best wishes to the WordWenches on their birthday, too. Wonderful blog, consistantly one of the most enjoyable on the Web!

[Nina P]

All this art is fascinating! Any suggestions on art sites/books depicting mythical paintings of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses?

[RevMelinda]

Well, my memory is slightly hyperbolic as usual. I dragged out the book in question, "The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion" by Leo Steinberg, and it isn't filled with glossy photos--just lots of black and white reproductions.

Here are a couple just to prove I wasn't totally making this stuff up (I hope the links work):

Ludwig Krug, Man of Sorrows, c.1520

http://bp1.blogger.com/_x4_N2JYJj3c/Re2AFnQcf2I/AAAAAAAAABU/dH6oJ2OjnN8/s1600-h/Erect-4Krug.jpg

William Key, Pieta, after 1530

http://bp2.blogger.com/_n51MYiZjdLA/RiEBS6A8CYI/AAAAAAAAACU/C3Xli29ebR8/s1600-h/Pieta.jpg

and my personal favorite,
Maerten van Heemskerck, Man of Sorrows, c. 1525-30

http://bp2.blogger.com/_n51MYiZjdLA/RiEB26A8CZI/AAAAAAAAACc/iC2xJxWNA7E/s1600-h/Ecce+Homo.jpg

[Jo Beverley]

My goodness, RevMelinda. I'd never really noticed the careful arrangement of loin cloths before.

I do love our collective knowledge base here!

Jo

[Kathy Kremer]

Rev Melinda: There is something I heard in nursing school which I'm not sure about factually. It is that "in extremis" men will get an erection and perhaps ejaculate at the moment of death. Maybe this is what is being emphasized as a token of Christ's being a real man and truly experiencing death. Just a thought. Anyway, the crucifixion scenes always show him in a loin cloth out of respect, but more than likely he died completely naked. It was part of the humiliation of the public execution.

[Diane Gaston]

What about Ingres?

http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/ingres/p-ingres1.htm

[Maya Missani]

ref: nude males in paintings - I travelled to Paris with my family when I was 19, and remember wandering the halls of the Louvre thinking this exact thing: there is so much nekkid female skin everywhere it gets really tedious, where the heck are the corresponding men ? So when I came upon one it was quite a surprise. I don't recall the artist or the year created, but it was of a youngish looking man in profile, completely starkers, resting his forehead on his knees as he sat on what I'm guessing was a riverbank or something. The painting was quite beautiful, with a gorgeous shade of blue dominating the background, and also quite modest - all the naughty bits were shielded from view by a thigh. I was so amazed to find it that I remember buying a postcard of the painting in the giftshop later...

[Michelle Styles]

As luck would have it, my very lovely husband just came home with a new book for me. Decency and Disorder The Age of Cant 1789 -1837 by Ben Wilson.
The introduction starts with a discussion of male nudity in the 1818, in particular the right to bathe and the Thames Police Act of 1815 and how the concern over public flesh was something compared to a decade before. Wilson quotes an article from The Times about unashamed natural bathing of upper class women in Brighton --rising like Venuses from the waves.

Anyway, it looks to be a very good book. It was just published in Britain, so I am not sure if or when it will reach the US.

FWIW
Michelle Styles

[kay]

This is great, thanks! Naked guys! I studied art for four years, and part of that study was “live drawing class”. The interesting part of that was, the women models were completely unclothed, while the male models wore jock straps. I understand that at the time it was a state law and I don’t know if it’s changed since then, however I always wondered why it was ok for a woman to be completely naked, but not the man.

I found a 15 page pdf file history on bathing at www.scienceinthebox.com/en_UK/pdf/history-of-washing.pdf The following quote is from that article “Throughout the 18th century, the belief that originated during the time of the plague in the Middle Ages namely that disease could be contracted through water that touched the skin, remained relatively unchallenged. The world would have to wait until the mid-19th century for French scientist Louis Pasteur to prove this theory wrong.”

And, a question: Don’t you think a wet shirt/shift is more sensual than naked?

Thanks again, this has been very interesting.

[LorettaChase]

"Throughout the 18th century, the belief that originated during the time of the plague in the Middle Ages namely that disease could be contracted through water that touched the skin, remained relatively unchallenged. The world would have to wait until the mid-19th century for French scientist Louis Pasteur to prove this theory wrong.”

But then we have the public baths, as at Bath so popular in the 18th century--all these diseased people in one big pool. And even in a bathing dress of some kind, the neck, head, hands, and feet are exposed. So I'm scratching my head about this one.

As to wet shirts vs. naked body--I do have to say that Colin Firth in a wet shirt is the stuff of dreams.

[Kalen Hughes]

From what I've read (wish I could remember the book!) the idea of muslins being dampened by fast women come from a scathing comment made by an Englishman about the “new” fashions of Frenchwomen.

[RobynL]

Supposedly American founding father Benjamin Franklin was a great believer in "air baths": now that is interesting!!!
I think wet shifts are more appealing than nakedness for some reasons and the later better for others.

[Keira Soleore]

SusanS & Jo:
It's interesting to note that the minute women were allowed to go on stage, they "took advantage" of the attention to have their pictures painted in nude. This is interesting in conjunction with the conversation Jo and I were having in the comments section of the Naked Blogs Part I. Time and time again, when women are given the opportunity for equality, they express it by baring themselves. Our bra-burning feminists come to mind. Why is that so?

And also why is it that men didn't have their nude portraits done?

PR & Jo:
I'm always jerked out of historical stories, when I find heroines far too modest with regards to nudity in front of servants. That also includes not wanting servants to help, etc. etc. anachronisms.

No wonder the English use only Georgian to depict the period including "Prinnyism."

LC & SS:
However, we also have Georgian Jane Austen's writings in addition to La Heyer's. Bawdy and raunchy were not terms in Jane's printed vocab. While she may not have been as puritanical as Heyer, there is a general air of prudishness.

[Keira Soleore]

AgTigress: Regarding heroic nudity, I have three words: 300 Gerard Butler. :)

SusanS: I believe the goddess depiction made the Grecian outfit and pose more socially acceptable.

[Diane Gaston]

AgTigress: Regarding heroic nudity, I have three words: 300 Gerard Butler. :)

Whoo hoo! You know I'm with you on that one, Keira!!

[Cathie]

Now I want to go look up paintings! (You got me all hooked on looking up more historical info). But I've always loved going to the museum here and seeing the historical paintings.

So for me I'd say, George Clooney :)