Bathing hour (L’heure du bain) c.1909 is thought to depict a beach on France’s Channel Coast that, in the early twentieth century, was frequented by the upper middle class.

Bathing was not yet common and, while it was unusual for a female child to appear naked in polite society, it was equally unusual for her to be tended to by her mother rather than a nanny. By contrasting the girl’s nakedness and the mother’s flowing robes with the more restrictive costumes of the women in the background, Fox may be commenting on the relaxation of social customs that was occurring in Europe at the time.

The painting is one of two versions of the same subject. The earlier of the two, entitled The bathing hour 1909, is in the collection of the Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria. The immediacy of the brushwork and the realistic shadows that characterise the earlier version indicate that it was probably painted en plein air, directly from the subject. This later version, a more formal painting in which the artist has eliminated some of the shadowing of the subject, was probably painted entirely in the artist’s studio.