Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed'

William Etty (1787–1849), the seventh child of a York baker and miller,[2] began his career as an apprentice printer in Hull at the age of 11.

[3] On completing his seven-year apprenticeship he moved to London "with a few pieces of chalk crayons",[4] with the intention of becoming a history painter in the tradition of the Old Masters,[5] and studied under renowned artist Thomas Lawrence.

[6] Strongly influenced by the works of Titian and Rubens, Etty submitted numerous paintings to the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Institution, all of which were either rejected or received little attention when exhibited.

[15][A] From 1832 onwards, needled by repeated attacks from the press, Etty remained a prominent painter of nudes, but made conscious efforts to try to reflect moral lessons in his work.

[17] How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view As from her naked limbs of glowing white, Harmonious swelled by nature's finest hand, In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn, And fair exposed she stood, shrunk from herself, With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn?

Musidora is based on Summer,[19] a poem by the Scottish poet and playwright James Thomson (best known today as the author of Rule, Britannia!).

[20] Although the individual poems attracted little interest on their release, The Seasons proved critically and commercially successful once completed, and Thomson began to associate with important and influential London political and cultural figures.

Joseph Haydn wrote a major oratorio based on the poem, significant artists including Thomas Gainsborough, J. M. W. Turner and Richard Westall painted scenes from it, and over 400 editions of The Seasons in a number of languages were published between 1744 and 1870.

Musidora sees the paper and panics, but on reading it and realising that it has been written by Damon, feels admiration for his behaviour as well as a surge of pride that her own beauty can provoke such a reaction.

[25] The painting shows the moment from Summer in which Musidora, having removed the last of her clothes, steps into "the lucid coolness of the flood" to "bathe her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream".

[26] Gainsborough's Musidora, his only large nude, was never exhibited in his lifetime and remained in private hands until 1847,[27] but Etty was familiar with its then-owner Robert Vernon and may have seen it in his collection.

[18] The Plantation was the home of his close friend and patron the Reverend Isaac Spencer, vicar of Acomb, and its grounds being a scene Etty had previously painted.

The Seasons, by contrast, was seen as an explicitly English work, requiring a more muted palette to deal with the typical lighting conditions of Yorkshire.

[28] The Court Magazine and Monthly Critic called the 1843 version "One of the most delicate and beautiful female figures in the entire gallery", saying that "no hues can be more natural—more Titianesque, if we may so speak.

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, the primary market for art was no longer a privately educated landed aristocracy who had been taught the Classics and were familiar with ancient mythology, but the emerging middle class.

[30] These new buyers lacked the classical education to understand the references in history paintings but could appreciate Musidora as a skilful execution and as a work of beauty in its own right.

[36] In 1882 Vanity Fair commented on Musidora that "I know only too well how the rough and his female companion behave in front of pictures such as Etty's bather.