I’ve always heard this as a cheezy 50’s/60’s way of asking a girl to your place for … well, whatever. When and why did this start? Did etchings all of a sudden become popular at one point? What kind of etchings; wax, glass, etc.? When did it get cheezy?
I can’t answer the specifics of your question, but I can tell you that this “line” was used on me once – and, by damn, the man actually had etchings!
When I first met my wife-to-be, I asked her if she wanted to come over to my place to look at my Uncle Scrooge Comics. She did, and was astounded when I actually SHOWED her my Uncle Scrooge comics. We’ve been married for 33 years.
Despite the odd coding, that’s all from the same source.
I distincting remember from the BBC ‘I, Claudius’ one of the more dissolute emperors scandalizing a family by offering to show a young women his (apparently obscene) paintings from Greece.
I don’t remember this in either of the books, but it’s been a really long time.
I remember a movie reviewer mocking the movie Clan of the Cave Bear by saying it was the kind of movie where one character asks another if they would like to go back to their cave to see their carvings.