Pears' Soap advertisement: The Order of the Bath – Vintage Print
(Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Pears' Soap advertisement: The Order of the Bath, preserved in this historic image. It is part of the Snapshots of the Past archive, gathered over 25 years of research.
Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Pears' Soap advertisement: The Order of the Bath
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The title is a joke. "The Order of the Bath" borrows the name of the British order of chivalry, the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and applies it to washing, suggesting that cleanliness deserves the same dignity as knighthood. That kind of wordplay was typical of Victorian soap advertising, which sold hygiene as a mark of respectability at a time when public health campaigns were pushing bathing into ordinary households. Pears' built its reputation on this kind of campaign, pairing its soap with polished images and witty copy that made washing seem both fashionable and virtuous. The piece is a useful reminder of how commerce and the moral language of cleanliness were closely tied in the late 19th century.
| Original scan | 623 × 890 px |
|---|---|
| Reference | 392 |
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Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.
