N an essay,, Sir Francis Bacon famously identified ‘the colours that show best by candlelight’ as ‘white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green’. He added: ‘As for rich embroidery, it is lost and not discerned.’ In a painting of 1735,, libidinous French artist Jean François de Troy showed the truth of Bacon’s dictum. A lady’s maid removes her
