Ladies Bathing

Description:

Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.

These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.

This hand colored print is of nine ladies bathing in a natural outdoor scene. Two at the right are wearing simple dresses in blue and red; the rest are draped in flowing garments and in various poses and states of undress.

This print was produced by the lithographic firm of Kelloggs & Comstock. In 1848, John Chenevard Comstock developed a partnership with E.B. and E.C. Kellogg. In 1850, Edmund Burke Kellogg left the firm, leaving his brother Elijah Chapman Kellogg and J.C. Comstock to run the lithography firm as Kellogg and Comstock. The short-lived partnership disbanded in 1851. It was not until 1855 that Edmund Burke Kellogg rejoined his brother E.C. Kellogg and continued the success of the family’s Lithography firm.

Date Made: 1852

Distributors: Ensign, Thayer and CompanyMaker: Kelloggs & Comstock

Location: Currently not on view

Place Made: United States: Connecticut, Hartford

Subject: Swimming

Subject:

See more items in: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life, Art, Peters Prints, Domestic Furnishings

Exhibition:

Exhibition Location:

Related Publication: Peters, Harry T.. America on Stone

Credit Line: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Id Number: DL.60.2270Catalog Number: 60.2270Accession Number: 228146Maker Number: 402

Object Name: lithographObject Type: Lithograph

Physical Description: hand-colored (image production method/technique)ink (overall material)paper (overall material)Measurements: image: 12 in x 8 in; 30.48 cm x 20.32 cmoverall: 14 in x 10 in; 35.56 cm x 25.4 cm

Guid: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a1-27e4-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Record Id: nmah_324608

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.