Augustus Leopold Egg - A Young Lady at Toilet

oil on canvas

A famous picture that seems to have been owned at one stage by Edmund J. McCormick and was offered in the auction of his Victorian pictures in 1990, though it seems first to have been sold in a sale of the artists works in 1863. The contrast between the pretty, vain lady and her servant has often been used to make a point. Henry O'Neill pointed out the similarity between this picture and Terborch's 'Lady at her toilet'. Fascinating to me is how the word toilet has changed. For example Toilet water was once a form of perfume.

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1816 - 1863.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jegg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Egg

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=169&page=1