During the late Victorian period artists became bolder in the way they represented the nude at public exhibitions. Adopting a broader repertoire of subjects, they not only presented the body in states of subjection, exertion and arousal, but also did so on a spectacular scale, testing the limits of high art.

The rise of the 'sensational nude' was often seen to be associated with a perceived decline in public morals and with the influence of French art, and thus invited considerable opposition, particularly from religious and moral groups. The outbreak of a number of related moral panics in the mid-1880s, centered on the victimisation of children, adolescents and women by abusive men, led to the nude being blamed as an incitement to vice and exploitation.