A Turkish Bath (Aubry de La Mottraye's "Travels throughout Europe, Asia and into Part of Africa...," London, 1724, vol. I, pl. 10)
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Hogarth made this print early in his career to illustrate a travel book by the French author Aubry de La Mottraye. The image of a woman bathing with the assistance of a servant derives from one in "Recueil de cent estampes représentant differéntes nations du Levant..." (A Collection of One Hundred Prints Representing Nations of the Levant, 1712-13). In that earlier publication plate 45, "La fille turque à qui l'on tresse les cheveux au bain" (Turkish girl having her hair dressed in a bath) was engraved by Jean Baptiste Haussard after Jean Baptiste Vanmour. Hogarth's print adapts Vanmour's figures to show the servant pouring water over her mistress, rather than arranging her hair, and adds a ceiling pierced with with round glass panes, an architectural feature that La Mottraye mentions seeing at a bathhouse at Tripoli.
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