William HogarthThe Staymaker (? The Happy Marriage V: The Fitting of the Ball Gown) c.1745

This is probably one of the sketches
for a series of paintings about a 'Happy Marriage' which Hogarth planned but did not finish. This scene may show a young country squire's wife being fitted for the ball-gown she is to wear in the following scene, The Dance.

Her husband sits in the background, wearing a voluminous dressing gown.
He is playing with his youngest child,
held up by a doting nurse. The boy
in the centre plays at soldiers, while
the little girl to the right pours milk
into the staymaker's hat for the kitten under the table.