A print depicting a laundry maid, three quarter length, stood facing three-quarters to the right before a laundry tub, squeezing a bag of blue dye, in front of a wall (at left) and foliage (at right). She is modestly dressed wearing a cap, a flowered gown with kercheif over her décolletage and a quilted petticoat protected by a bib-fronted apron tucked into the waistband. In elite households the cleaning of linen was undertaken by a professional laundress or laundry maid. A distinction was made between the heavy-duty 'wet laundering' located off-site, and delicate 'dry laundering' usually undertaken within the house by a personal body servant. The latter involved washing smaller, higher-value more visible items such as caps and kercheifs, as well as ironing and starching. Here, the laundry woman squeezes the bag of blue dye (usually smalt, a powder derived from blue glass, or indigo) into the wooden tub of water, a step during the final rinse that was designed to counteract the natural yellowing of linen over time and give the optical illusion of bright white.

The title of the print suggests that the laundry maid depicted is 'Mrs Grosvenor, Landry [sic] woman to Queen Charlotte' however the official court documents record that a Deborah Chetwynd held the post of 'Laundress, Seamstress and Starcher' from 1761.

Text partially adapted from Style and Society: Dressing the Georgians, 2023.

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