It depicts a scene from John Milton's Paradise Lost in which, among a series of visions of the future shown to Adam, he sees the world immediately before the Great Flood.

Another work by Etty, sold as A Bacchanalian Scene in 1830 and later renamed Landscape with Figures, was identified in 1953 as a preliminary oil sketch for The World Before the Flood and purchased by the York Art Gallery.

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

[9] Although some nudes by foreign artists were held in private English collections, the country had no tradition of depicting unclothed figures and the display and distribution of such material to the public had been suppressed since the 1787 Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice.

[12][C] They on the Plain Long had not walkt, when from the Tents behold A Beavie of fair Women, richly gay In Gems and wanton dress; to the Harp they sung Soft amorous Ditties, and in dance came on: The Men though grave, ey'd them, and let thir eyes Rove without rein, till in the amorous Net Fast caught, they lik'd, and each his liking chose; And now of love they treat till th'Eevning Star Loves Harbinger appeerd; then all in heat They light the Nuptial Torch, and bid invoke Hymen, then first to marriage Rites invok't; With Feast and Musick all the Tents resound.

Such happy interview and fair event Of love and youth not lost, Songs, Garlands, Flours, And charming Symphonies attach'd the heart Of Adam, soon enclin'd to admit delight, The bent of Nature; which he thus express'd.

[16] The World Before the Flood is strongly influenced by A Bacchanalian Revel Before a Term of Pan (1632–1633) by Nicolas Poussin,[17] whom Etty greatly admired and of whose works he had previously made several copies;[18][19] this painting had been bought by the National Gallery in 1826.

[14] In a preliminary study for The World Before the Flood now in the York Art Gallery, the broad structure is similar to that of the finished work, but the focus is more strongly on the central group of women.

[16] In Etty's oil sketch and preliminary drawings the right-most of the dancing figures, wearing a green skirt, faces outward with her arms behind her back, forming a closed circle together with the central group of dancers.

It was initially exhibited as A Composition, taken from the Eleventh Book of Milton's Paradise Lost,[23] and was referred to by Etty himself as The Bevy of Fair Women and The Origin of Marriage.

A writer in the Literary Gazette called the painting a "deadly sin against good taste", describing the background as "unnecessarily harsh and crude" with "much to blame and lament" and the dancing figures "outrageous", complaining that the women reminded him not of Paradise Lost, but of the scantily clad witches in Robert Burns's Tam o' Shanter.

[29] An anonymous critic in the Monthly Magazine disparaged the "writhings and twinings" of the painting's subjects, describing them as "as close to the unpardonable limits as anything that has lately appealed to the public eye".

[18] This same writer disapproved of the dark skin tones of some of the figures, arguing that "the brown visage of the gipsey gives but a dingy image of the roses and lilies that, from time immemorial, have made the charm of British beauty.

Its depiction of women drew particular ire: "the expression of the faces is vapid; the features rather homely; the limbs, though not ill-drawn, have not that finish and play of the muscles, which alone give lightness and elasticity.

The review upbraided Etty as an artist who had "advanced half way on his road to classic excellence; and there, when he should have proceeded with increased ardour and more careful exactness from being in view of his object, he has stopped short.

After clearing out, we shall again put to sea and hope for equally favouring gales next voyage.From 1832 onwards, needled by repeated attacks from the press on his supposed indecency and tastelessness, Etty often made a conscious effort to project a moral dimension into his work, although he continued to be a prominent painter of nudes.