At age 7, Charles Demuth and his family moved to the King Street home where he spent most of his lifetime. Demuth's health was frail; from an early age he suffered from lameness and as an adult his misery was compounded by severe diabetes. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall Academy and studied at Drexel Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. As a young man he traveled to Paris where he was part of the avant garde scene.

Self in a Turkish Bath

Though plagued by illness all his life, he produced over a thousand works of art. During his lifetime he sold many of his works, enjoyed favorable reviews from art critics and was part of Alfred Stieglitz's American Place Gallery in New York. Although he studied and painted in Philadelphia, New York, Provincetown, Paris and Bermuda, Demuth created most of his art in his home where he worked in a small second floor studio of the rear wing, overlooking the garden.

The garden was tended by his mother Augusta and was the source of inspiration for many of Demuth's paintings. The Demuth home, built in the latter part of the 18th century, is one of the oldest in Lancaster and once served as a Colonial era tavern.

Self in a Turkish Bath is currently housed in the Demuth Museum, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.