In this bathing scene illuminated by candlelight, a lady with a pair of dainty bound feet sits seductively on a bamboo bench by her bathtub. She gathers her translucent gown around her waist, revealing her idealised body underneath. The painting captures a contemplative moment before she undresses for the bath. Her hair ornament and long fingernails are signifiers of her upper-class status. She is the perfect courtesan, for she is not only beautiful in appearance but also knowledgeable, as implied by the potted orchid – a virtuous symbol of the scholar – and a stack of books in the background.

A closely related 18th-century meiren painting of the same subject matter, Beauty about to Bathe, is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (accession no. 1943.151), illustrated in James Cahill, Pictures for Use and Pleasure: Vernacular Painting in High Qing China, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2010, fig. 5.23 (fig. 1). The beauty in the Chicago painting is similarly dressed in a transparent robe with dainty red shoes. Cahill states that the two paintings are “so close in style and corresponding in so many features that we can see it as a product of the same studio, possibly the same artist” (p. 237).

Cédric Laurent suggests that the subject is inspired by the bathing story of the Zhao sisters, imperial concubines of Emperor Chengdi (r. 33-7 BC) of the Western Han dynasty (Le Palais du printemps, op. cit., p. 196). In the earliest known Chinese erotic novella Zhao Feiyan waizhuan [Unorthodox biography of Zhao Feiyan] believed to be written in the Song dynasty, the Han Emperor found pleasure in voyeurism and relished the sight of Zhao Hede in her bath at the ‘Orchid Lavation Room’ (Yulanshi).

浴室中、燭光下，美人身穿薄紗，婀娜身軀，若隱若現。髮髻滿飾，指甲修長，小足蹬紅鞋，妖嬈之餘，暗示其社會地位。身後書籍和旁邊蘭花，象徵學問涵養，可悉她不僅漂亮動人，同時知書識禮，是理想的情人。

芝加哥藝術學院藏十八世紀美人畫（藏品編號：1943.151，圖一），同繪美人沐浴，構圖、風格與此有相類之處，是以高居𨌺提出兩幅作品或出自同一畫坊或畫師之手（《致用與娛情：大清盛世的世俗繪畫》，柏克萊、洛杉磯及倫敦，2010 年，圖5.23及頁237）。

Cédric Laurent 在《Le Palais du printemps》中指，美人出浴圖或受飛燕與合德的故事所啟（出處同上，頁196）。據信寫於宋代、已知最早的中國情色小說《趙飛燕外傳》中，西漢成帝（公元前33-7年在位）妃子趙合德沐於玉蘭室，漢帝窺看心蕩神馳。