Two elderly and ugly women in a bedroom. One, who appears to be the mistress, clings with both hands to the post of a four-post bed, leaning backwards while her maid exerts all her strength to lace her stays. The maid holds a poker in both hands, the stay-lace has been twisted round it; one foot is placed on the projecting skirt of her mistress, which is extended by a 'cork rump', see BMSat 5381, &amp;c; she leans back in order to pull the harder. The lady's hair is dressed in the prevailing fashion of caricature, trimmed with feathers, lace, flowers, &amp;c. She wears a large pocket over her under-petticoat.   On the wall are two half length portraits which appear to be caricatures of costume: one (left), contemporary, showing a woman with a compressed waist, a man with enormous buttons, see BMSat 5432, &amp;c.; the other (right) perhaps Elizabethan. See also BMSat 5444, &amp;c.  5 March 1777
<br>Etching
1777<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1777-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
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