Three young women regrouping after a foray into the ocean was his most daring subject to date. By portraying two of the figures posed indecorously and unaware of being watched, he invites viewers to become voyeurs. The focal point is the woman wringing out her woolen bathing costume before doing the same with her hair. Critics who remarked on the painting when it was shown in 1870 were less disturbed by its disquieting mood than by the fact that, as one observed, "the figures were exceedingly red-legged and ungainly." When the painting was reproduced as a wood engraving in a family magazine a few months later, either Homer or the wood engraver covered the girls'' exposed legs with long underpants and replaced the frightened dog with a bathing cap, tempering some of the story''s candor.