UNRECORDED. Not in the BM or any other institution that we have been able to locate.
A hitherto unknown satire on women’s fashion in the middle of the 18th-century: an elegant and wealthy young woman is shown being measured (perhaps suggestively) by a gentleman staymaker while her maid looks on and assists.
The text beneath the images reads:
“The Shape and Dress of evr’y Fair,
Fill all her Thoughts with anxious Care.
If Nature shews some ugly Part,
How does it vex her tender Heart.
The Glass and Betty’s ever teaz’d;
With neither of them is she pleas’d
But if a Hump looks o’re her Shoulder,
And shocks the Sight of the Beholder,
The padded Stay, that Stitchum makes
(All Shapes he mends, or undertakes)
Gives her a Grace, without a Foible
Betty will swear it on the Bible“
This satirical print suggests that the young woman is obsessed with her appearance and that the easiest cure is a skilled staymaker (corset maker) who is able to “correct” the woman’s appearance so that she is satisfied with her reflection. Added to this is the suggestion that the young woman also seeks the approval of her maid (here named Betty) who “will swear it on the Bible” that her appearance has, “a Grace without a Foible.” This print provides a huge amount of information about the representation of women and women’s fashion in the period - the sense that the woman is (perhaps irrationally) dissatisfied with her appearance still feels very relevant today and that idea that fashion (and particularly brutal corseting) might be the answer adds to this. The seeking of approval from a lower class woman is also significant and the suggestion from the text is that perhaps Betty is happy to agree with her mistress rather than provoke a further fit of anxiety.
The gentlemen staymaker show in the image suggestively rests is hand near the young woman’s breast as he measures her bodice. The title of the engraving is also given in French, perhaps suggesting that it was intended for a French market keen to poke fun at their fashionable English counterparts.
