The Stay-Maker

Haynes uses etching to copy a painting by Hogarth of ca. 1745 now at Tate Britain in London. We see a young woman at home being fitted for stays. As the young male staymaker adjusts the garment, she looks over her shoulder into a mirror held by a maid. Her son, wearing miniaturized adult male dress, looks up at her intently, while her husband, in dressing gown and cap, relaxes on a sofa at right and plays with a baby held by a nurse. At right, a little girl pours a cup of liquid into the staymaker's overturned hat.
Stays were an 18th century undergarment worn over a chemise and under a gown to support the bust and create an upright, elongated shape. Strips of baleen, or whalebone were sewn into linen, cotton or silk to stiffened this predecessor of the corset. This image demonstrates the intimate contact that a staymaker had with a client to fit the garment, something that both the woman and her husband ignore here.