Chapter 2 examines early Florentine portrayals of the nude female in relation to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century discourses concerned with skin, fertility, and the feminine toilette. It argues that these paintings (1) offered instruction to women in the arts of beauty and (2) provided a physical image that could aid in the generation of healthy children. Placed in bedroom suites, these works of art were viewed not only by upper-class women but also by handmaidens and servants who purchased, collected, and prepared the materials needed for the care and cultivation of the female body, whose flesh – after being approved by a family – joined with the flesh of another in order to produce more flesh.