A young woman, posing naked in a classical attitude, against a square column in a photographic studio. Photograph, ca.1890/1910.

The model's body is entirely powdered white, to appear like a marble statue, her g-string has been retouched out of the photograph. The same model is also shown in 528638i. "Barely discernible fleshings--body stockings made of some gossamer fabric--clothes both and identified both the pose plastique artiste and Miss Viola Hamilton (clearly a celebrity in her own time). Though their erotic charge is highly diluted a hundred years later, these photographs were probably marketed and collected as prize examples of the lovely, living female form and/or mementos of the performers' stage acts. As a genre the pose plastique is related to the tableau vivant with the important difference that the performers appear to be naked, hence the other term used to describe this type of performance, "clothed nudity". On stage the pose plastique artistes would strike and hold motionless poses derived from famous sculptures or paintings. As long as the performers did not move, or only gradually shifted from one pose to another, the spectacle could be deemed Art. Audiences enjoyed the sensation of 'paintings come to life' and 'living sculptures'. Sculptural qualities were emphasised and enhanced. Any hint of naughtiness was well filtered. Fleshings covered body hair and smoothed out imperfections. Genitalia and nipples disappeared. A dusting of powder overall including the hair completed the illusion. In these examples the artistes prop themselves against a rather worn and dirty piece of studio furniture, a wooden box marbled to suggest a neoclassical plinth. The plasticising treatment is carried further, in the hairstyle of the unidentified performer and in Viola Hamilton's garland of flowers and flowing draperies. [...]"—Virginia Dodier, in Exposed, loc. cit.