Pennington casts aspersions on the Hollar attribution: “The print dealers catalogues from H[ollar]’s time to 1825 do not mention them; and if they are from Hollar’s plates, which is unlikely, these have been so heavily reworked as to have lost their Hollar quality. Some seem to be copies of the Theatrum mulierum figures.”

A more likely attribution is to George Bickham jnr., who advertised “10 Ladies of Pleasure, or the Shades of Concubine Row”, as no. 110 in his catalogue of c1740.

Lettered within the plate of each courtezan is an abbreviated note of her name and the amount charged for services rendered, thus: “Flo.a A-w, a gui[nea] a time or “Elia F-k 10 Gns a time”!