Punch was first drunk in Britain in the 1650s. This was around the same time that tea, coffee and hot chocolate became available. By the turn of the eighteenth century, it was an incredibly popular drink.

Making punch

Punch was made using a mixture of expensive imported ingredients. The alcohol content was provided by rum or brandy, to which sugar, citrus fruit, spices – usually grated nutmeg – and water were added.

The Punch Bowl

Using an elegant ladle, punch was served from large communal bowls into individual glasses (Figure 1). One of the most important punch bowls in Amgueddfa Cymru’s collection is that designed by Robert Adam for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn (Figure 2). It was commissioned to celebrate the success of Sir Watkin's horse, Fop, at the Chester Races and would have been displayed prominently on the sideboard at his fashionable London home.

Punch was often drunk at gatherings of clubs and societies, usually held in taverns, coffee houses, or special punch-houses (Figure 3). These were almost exclusively attended by men. Drinking punch seems to have been a highly sociable act that strengthened social ties. A letter published in 1736 describes this eloquently:

Punch bowls were made to commemorate special events; they were decorated with the names of guilds or societies, or masculine symbols such as ships. An interesting example in Amgueddfa Cymru’s collection is inscribed ‘Edward Jones Scoole Master 1751’ (Figure 4). It has a painting of a school teacher and his pupils reading together. It is easy to imagine such a personal object being commissioned by Edward Jones, or perhaps given to him as a gift.

Raucous and uncivilised parties:

During the first half of the eighteenth century, there was widespread alarm about the dangers of alcoholism, particularly resulting from the widespread availability of cheap, home-distilled gin. Excessive punch drinking was often associated with bad behaviour.

Excessive drinking in general was often linked with moral decline, and punch parties were usually satirised by contemporary artists as raucous and uncivilised. William Hogarth’s A Midnight Modern Conversation, published in 1732/33, is perhaps the best known illustration of a punch party. It was immensely popular and was soon reproduced on punch bowls and other vessels for consuming and serving alcohol (Figure 5).

Eighteenth century binge drinking

Old Bailey records often support the linking of excessive punch drinking with unsociable, even criminal behaviour. This includes stealing expensive punch bowls from public houses and people’s homes and sharing a bowl of punch with a victim before swindling them.

From around the 1750s, punch also began to be served from porcelain and earthenware punch-pots. These are very similar in form and sometimes in decoration to teapots, but are much larger (Figure 6). Unlike open punch bowls, punch pots enabled the drink to be served in a controlled manner by one person – just like tea. This mediated form of serving might have been considered more civilised and refined than communal punch bowls, where people could help themselves and easily drink to excess.

Punch drinking was at its most popular during the mid-eighteenth century, but it continued to be enjoyed into the nineteenth century. A fine earthenware punch bowl was made for John Richardson by the Cambrian Pottery in 1845, the same year that he served as Mayor of Swansea (Figure 7). Interestingly, he commissioned the bowl as a birthday gift for his infant grandson and it is decorated with several Richardson coats of arms. Part of the inscription reads ‘GAILY STILL OUR MOMENTS ROLL, WHILST WE QUAFF THE FLOWING BOWL’.

The social status of artists had traditionally been low. To earn the respect of his future clients, an artist needed a good general education, including some knowledge of geometry and of classical history and literature. Many were therefore the sons of middle-class professionals or tradesmen.

An artist's training was still largely based on the traditional apprenticeship system. He became a pupil of an established artist, to whom he paid a fee. In return he was taught the technical skills of preparing paints and canvases, and learnt through example and by carrying out routine tasks.

It was realised that more formal and structured training was also needed, and London had a number of drawing schools. The Welsh painter Thomas Jones attended two of these for eighteen months before beginning a two-year pupilage with Richard Wilson.

Once he had achieved an acceptable level of skill, an artist might find work as a paid assistant, but eventually he had to establish his own practice. If he could afford it, a period of study abroad was a vital stage in developing a career. Nearly two hundred British and Irish artists travelled in Italy during the eighteenth century.

Specialization

Eighteenth-century British artists had to develop a particular skill that would attract customers. They did so by specializing in one of a number of 'branches' of painting. Theorists regarded history paintings, works with morally uplifting messages, often drawn from ancient history, as the 'highest' form of art. In practice the demand for history painting was largely met by the European Old Master paintings collected by the very wealthy.

Most British painters were portraitists, as almost anyone who could afford it had their image taken — in miniature or in chalks or pencil, if an oil painting was too expensive. Reynolds cleverly flattered his aristocratic clients by giving their great portraits a touch of Old Master glamour. Some artists, notably Hogarth, developed the conversation piece of figures interacting in a domestic setting or painted 'fancy' or genre paintings of modern life. Others found a niche in painting animals, ships or flowers

Landscape painting became increasingly popular as people's attitudes to nature changed. From being images of a place, it became a way of expressing ideals and emotions. Richard Wilson specialized in landscapes that conveyed the serenity of the classical world. Others sought to convey the beauty and grandeur they found in nature.

The Emergence of a Profession

To gain status and financial reward, artists had to leave their craft origins behind and establish themselves as professionals. They did this by becoming more highly skilled, but particularly by forming clubs and societies. These promoted members' interests, particularly through exhibitions, and kept out those felt not to be good enough.

A number of leading artists, dissatisfied with the much larger Society of Artists, set up the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768. Membership was limited and by election. Its first President was Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), portrait painter and theorist, who mixed easily with the elite of the day. The Academy promoted professional status of artists and provide training. Success in its annual exhibition could make an artist's reputation.

The Royal Academy's exhibitions were held in the 'Great Room' at Somerset House from 1780. Pictures were hung from floor to ceiling, and artists schemed to get their works 'on the line' — the potential purchaser's eye level.

An artist also needed suitable premises in a fashionable area, to receive clients and show off his work. These were expensive but the prices that a successful artist could charge also increased sharply. Reynolds at the height of his success charged £200 for a full-length portrait, a sum which was then a middle-class annual salary.

In the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, Italian scholars and artists developed a fresh interest in the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome. Architects and artists tried to recreate and improve on the ancient world, using a classical style for buildings and decoration, pictures and sculpture. Today this period is known as the Renaissance ('rebirth').

The heart of the Renaissance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was Florence, the financial hub of Europe, and the most prosperous city in Italy. Supported by the Medici and other leading families, the arts flourished.

The Renaissance soon developed in Italy's other city states, both major cities like Venice and Milan in the north and smaller ones like Mantua and Urbino. From the late fifteenth century, Florentine artists like Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael worked in the Vatican in Rome for a series of Popes.

From the early sixteenth century Renaissance ideas spread to the rest of Europe, especially to France, the Netherlands and Germany, and later to Britain. Artists travelled abroad seeking work and sharing ideas, while the new technology of printing helped styles spread quickly.

Style and Symbolism

Artists of the Renaissance drew their inspiration from the art of classical Greece and Rome. They also tried to improve upon it, for example by perfecting the new system of linear perspective. Painted portraits and altarpieces, carved and cast statues, all show how artists studied the sculpture, gemstones, coins and medals of the ancient world. Architects used features from ancient Roman buildings — columns, arches, domes — in adventurous new ways. A wide range of everyday objects, from necklaces to wine cups, was produced to give a classical flavour to the lives of the wealthy. These were decorated with motifs taken from ancient sources.

The educated élite of the Renaissance acquired works of art to symbolize social and cultural virtues inherited by them from the ancient world. They displayed modern craftsmanship — maiolica pottery, glass, pictures, bronze figures and medallions — alongside classical antiquities. Classical references in the subject matter and decoration were highly prized, as were sophisticated design and skilful use of materials.

Later in the sixteenth century an exaggerated style known as Mannerism developed. From about 1600, the more dramatic and emotional Baroque style emerged, well suited to promote the religious themes of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Northern Landscape Artists in Rome

The Renaissance sparked a growing appreciation and interest in the natural world. Landscapes were often used as backgrounds for religious paintings. During the sixteenth century landscape painting gradually became more acceptable as an independent art form. In the seventeenth century landscapes became increasingly popular, although classical or biblical stories were still often included in the foreground.

Artists from all over Europe flocked to Rome in the seventeenth century, attracted by the beauty of the Roman countryside and its classical ruins. These artists developed the classical landscape style. The French artists Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin painted figures in serene landscape settings. They depicted nature as calm and idyllic, with every tree and rock carefully placed to create a balanced, idealized whole.

How did these works of art come to Wales?

A few European paintings are known to have been in Welsh homes by the second half of the seventeenth century. By the 1770s art collecting was an accepted aristocratic pastime. Welsh landowners like

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn acquired Italian, French and Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century. They also bought classical antiquities and commissioned work from foreign artists.

Wales's nineteenth-century industrialization created new fortunes and new art collectors, among them

Gwendoline and Margaret Davies , best known for their Impressionist paintings; and saw a new interest in earlier Renaissance art.

Some of the Old Master paintings in Amgueddfa Cymru once hung in Welsh country houses. Others were given to the Museum by Welsh collectors, and they tell a fascinating story of how art has been appreciated in Wales over many generations.