18th Century Women Without Stays

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Last updated: Oct 28, 2025

Not all women in the 18th century wore stays. These illustrations show women who clearly lack that sort of support undergarment, often wearing bedgowns or similar wrapped overgarments.

• A stout woman in a simple dress in an etching by Paul Sandby, c. 1740-1765
• Jersey Nanny, 1748
• A woman reading a document by the doorway in Zitting van Commissarissen tot ontvangst der Liberale Gifte by Jacobus Buys, 1748
• A woman in the right foreground holding a teakettle in The Sailor’s Revenge or the Strand in an Uproar, 1749 (h/t Jennifer Roy)
• William Adam’s nurse by Paul Sandby, c. 1752
• London Cries: Last Dying Speech and Confession, and Lights for the Cats, Liver for the Dogs by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
• A fisherwoman, hands under apron by Louis Philippe Boitard
• Woman standing by the table in High Life Below Stairs by John Collet, 1763
• The Female Orators, 1768
• Cream-woman of Trinity College Cambridge, 1770
• The City Chanters, 1771
• The Abusive Fruitwoman, 1773
• Scheveningse visloopster by Paulus Constantijn la Fargue, 1775