Of Etty's two original works exhibited at the RA in 1830, The Storm, inspired by Psalm 22, attracted little interest and was dismissed by The Gentleman's Magazine—typically a staunch supporter of Etty's work—as "a sad failure".
The other painting exhibited was Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, which was to prove one of the most controversial works of Etty's career.
Candaules is based on a story from Herodotus in which king Candaules arranges for his servant Gyges to spy on his wife Nyssia undressing without her knowledge.
Gyges is discovered and at Nyssia's behest kills Candaules, marries Nyssia and rules the kingdom in his stead.
The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia removes the last of her clothes.
By positioning the figures in such a way that none are looking out of the picture, and the viewer is directly behind Nyssia, Etty aimed for the viewer to feel the same sense of voyeurism and intrusion that Gyges would have felt, forced to spy on his master's naked wife against his will and without her knowledge.

Etty felt that the work illustrated the moral that women are not chattels, and were entitled to punish men who violated their rights.
He made little effort to explain this to his audience, and thus Candaules appeared morally highly ambiguous, inviting the viewer to sympathise either with the sexually immoral Candaules, the murderous Nyssia or the voyeuristic Gyges.
From the moment it was unveiled Candaules was condemned as a cynical mix of a distasteful narrative and pornographic images, and there was near-unanimous consensus that it was inappropriate for public exhibition.
The piece remained controversial long after Etty's death; Alexander Gilchrist's overwhelmingly flattering 1855 biography of Etty described it as "almost the only instance among Etty's works, of an undeniably disagreeable, not to say objectionable subject", while as late as 2011 Sarah Burnage of the University of York wrote of Candaules that "it is perhaps hard to see the painting as anything but a deliberate attempt by the artist to shock and scandalise".
Candaules was bought by wealthy collector Robert Vernon, who was in the process of building a major collection of British art and was to become one of Etty's most important customers.

With the three paintings for the 1830 Summer Exhibition completed, Etty decided to pay another visit to Paris.
Etty travelled via Brighton, arriving in Paris in early July 1830.
He found the atmosphere of the city had become unpleasantly hedonistic, writing to Betsy that "If I had a daughter, she should not be educated here.
Pleasure and amusement are the idols."

France was in constitutional crisis in 1830, which reached a peak in late July as the July Revolution began and riots erupted across Paris.
Although moved by the death and destruction taking place around him, Etty felt that the purpose of his visit was to study paintings, and continued to attend the Louvre to copy paintings as the violence raged in the surrounding streets.
On 31 July he decided to abandon the trip; abandoning his proposed onward journey to Brussels and Antwerp, he collected the five copies he had made in the Louvre and set off for London.

The works Etty painted following his return began to show a departure in style from his previous efforts.
While the figures in his previous original paintings had been painted from sketches of models made in the studio or life classes, from now on he began to work from memory, and as a consequence his figures began to appear more idealised; Farr (1958) describes his figures from now on as "[conforming] less to a particular aspect of the model than to a preconceived notion of what the model ought to look like".
Of Etty's two original works exhibited at the RA in 1830, The Storm, inspired by Psalm 22, attracted little interest and was dismissed by The Gentleman's Magazine—typically a staunch supporter of Etty's work—as "a sad failure". The other painting exhibited was Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, which was to prove one of the most controversial works of Etty's career. Candaules is based on a story from Herodotus in which king Candaules arranges for his servant Gyges to spy on his wife Nyssia undressing without her knowledge. Gyges is discovered and at Nyssia's behest kills Candaules, marries Nyssia and rules the kingdom in his stead. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia removes the last of her clothes. By positioning the figures in such a way that none are looking out of the picture, and the viewer is directly behind Nyssia, Etty aimed for the viewer to feel the same sense of voyeurism and intrusion that Gyges would have felt, forced to spy on his master's naked wife against his will and without her knowledge.
Etty felt that the work illustrated the moral that women are not chattels, and were entitled to punish men who violated their rights. He made little effort to explain this to his audience, and thus Candaules appeared morally highly ambiguous, inviting the viewer to sympathise either with the sexually immoral Candaules, the murderous Nyssia or the voyeuristic Gyges. From the moment it was unveiled Candaules was condemned as a cynical mix of a distasteful narrative and pornographic images, and there was near-unanimous consensus that it was inappropriate for public exhibition. The piece remained controversial long after Etty's death; Alexander Gilchrist's overwhelmingly flattering 1855 biography of Etty described it as "almost the only instance among Etty's works, of an undeniably disagreeable, not to say objectionable subject", while as late as 2011 Sarah Burnage of the University of York wrote of Candaules that "it is perhaps hard to see the painting as anything but a deliberate attempt by the artist to shock and scandalise". Candaules was bought by wealthy collector Robert Vernon, who was in the process of building a major collection of British art and was to become one of Etty's most important customers.
With the three paintings for the 1830 Summer Exhibition completed, Etty decided to pay another visit to Paris. Etty travelled via Brighton, arriving in Paris in early July 1830. He found the atmosphere of the city had become unpleasantly hedonistic, writing to Betsy that "If I had a daughter, she should not be educated here. Pleasure and amusement are the idols."
France was in constitutional crisis in 1830, which reached a peak in late July as the July Revolution began and riots erupted across Paris. Although moved by the death and destruction taking place around him, Etty felt that the purpose of his visit was to study paintings, and continued to attend the Louvre to copy paintings as the violence raged in the surrounding streets. On 31 July he decided to abandon the trip; abandoning his proposed onward journey to Brussels and Antwerp, he collected the five copies he had made in the Louvre and set off for London.
The works Etty painted following his return began to show a departure in style from his previous efforts. While the figures in his previous original paintings had been painted from sketches of models made in the studio or life classes, from now on he began to work from memory, and as a consequence his figures began to appear more idealised; Farr (1958) describes his figures from now on as "[conforming] less to a particular aspect of the model than to a preconceived notion of what the model ought to look like".
William Etty