Ancient bath - time - why the sheets?

[Mosaic]

Many images of people having baths in old times show them with a sheet of some kind inside the bath - like this one:

http://en.wikipedia.o...ki/The_Death_of_Marat

So why have a sheet inside the bath? Wouldn't it sort of drip bathwater all over the floor?

[Count-A-Strong]

I don't think that's a bath

[McMouse]

I imagine for the sake of modesty when getting in and out of the bath.

[Count-A-Strong]

It's not a bath!!!

[sandyRoe]

Marat was stabbed to death...in a bath

[boxtops]

Yes, it is a bath - Marat was murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday, it's one of the few bits of history I can drag up at will.
Do you think it was for sanitary reasons, being as they didn't have Cillit Bang in those days?

[McMouse]

It is a bath and Marat died in it.

[Count-A-Strong]

Bleedin French!

[tiggerblue10]

OK its a Bain then!

[ladyalex]

Maybe it was to make it more comfortable than sitting straight on to the metal/wooden bath ?

[pastafreak]

It is described as a bath in this analysis of the painting.

http://onlineessays.c...ys/history/his078.php

[ChuckFickens]

"they didn't have Cillit Bang in those days?"

On the plus side they wouldn't have had "MY NAMES BARRY SCOTT" either

[boxtops]

Perhaps it was so your servants could ease you up, by holding the corners of the sheet, rather than the ungainly scrabble some of us have to get out of the bath.... we should ask Prince Charles, I am sure he must have a bath-lifter manservant (LO, that sounds rude).

[ChuckFickens]

Or ask sqad.

[jno]

he didn't just have baths to get clean, he had a skin disease that was improved if he stayed in water; so he probably spent a while in his bath and wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. (You can see in the painting he's writing, not just scrubbing.)

[pastafreak]

He was not writing....it is supposed to be the letter that Corday planned to present him to gain access....it is all symbolic and manipulated.

[jno]

he's got a pen in his hand, but he may just have been doing a sudoku.

[Mosaic]

Interesting comments folks.....
You can find pictures of people having their dinner on a kind of plank across the tub but there's still the sheet inside the bath!
I think redhelen might be the nearest to the reason - it seems the most straightforward - but I'd love to find a definitve answer!

[boxtops]

I did a reply to this last night, I found a link saying that the painter was cleverly mirroring Marat's body and the sheet with the sheet in one of the paintings of the death of Christ - but I posted in the wrong thread and I can't find it now!! ;-0

[heathfield]

One of several links confirming what you say, Boxtops...

http://artstoryinamed...baudry-charlotte.html