Please answer the following question: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: What work was a pretext for nude paintings by English artists?  By the time Etty exhibited Musidora, the theme was becoming something of a cliche, such that by 1850 it was described by The Literary Gazette as "a favourite subject for a dip of the brush". As interest in studies of Musidora waned, its role as a pretext for nude paintings by English artists was replaced by Lady Godiva, who had become a topic of increased interest owing to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Godiva. After the death of William Wordsworth in 1850, James Thomson ceased to be a major influence on writers. From the 1870s his popularity with readers waned, and by the end of the 20th century his works other than Rule, Britannia! were little known.When Etty died in 1849, despite having worked and exhibited until his death, he was still  regarded by many as a pornographer. Charles Robert Leslie observed shortly after Etty's death that "[Etty] himself, thinking and meaning no evil, was not aware of the manner in which his works were regarded by grosser minds". Interest in him declined as new movements came to characterise painting in Britain, and by the end of the 19th century the value of his paintings had fallen. It is likely that the composition and style of John Everett Millais's controversial The Knight Errant was influenced by Musidora, but other than Millais, and Etty's admirer and imitator William Edward Frost, few other artists were directly influenced by Etty's work. In 1882 Vanity Fair commented on Musidora that "I know only too well how the rough and his female companion behave in front of pictures such as Etty's bather. I have seen the gangs of workmen strolling round, and I know that their artistic interest in studies of the nude is emphatically embarrassing." By the early 20th century Victorian styles of art and literature fell dramatically out of fashion in Britain, and by 1915 the word "Victorian" had become a derogatory term. Frederick Mentone's The Human Form in Art (1944) was one of the few 20th-century academic works to favourably view Musidora.
Answer:
Musidora