There is a wonderful painting in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris called "the
Floor Planers" done in 1875 and it shows 3 barefoot and shirtless
workers refinishing a floor. At the time it was rejected for its "crude
realism" and "vulgar subject matter". One critic even said of the "that
is so accurate that it makes it bourgeois".

Perhaps no one wanted to admit that workers needed to be comfortable in
their work and they inaccurately portrayed them for the sake of
propriety?

Ed Minch

See the painting at:

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-
focus/painting/commentaire_id/the-floor-planers-
7164.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5-
D=841&cHash=72e9505792

 Don McConnell  wrote:

> Gaynor & Hagedorn, in _Tools, Working Wood in Eighteenth-Century
> America_, c. 1993, reproduce an oil painting, ca. 1725, entitled "The
> Carpenter's Yard," by Jack Laguerre. In it, all of the carpenters are
> shown wearing breeches, aprons, stockings, shoes and shirts. Only the
> master and his client are wearing waistcoats and coats.
>> It may well have been that nearly all men wore waistcoats
> and coats when "in public," which might explain the descriptions of
> runaway apprentices as wearing coats, etc. Besides, it could have been
> the easiest way to carry them. But this painting clearly indicates
> that they could be shed, depending on the weather I suppose, while
> actually at work.
>> Don McConnell
> Eureka Springs, AR
>
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