ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the efforts of watercolourists to combine together to develop a market for their works, and to create a series of attractive and innovative commodities. It focuses on the efforts of the various groupings of watercolourists – aided by supportive writers – to further their professional status by promoting their practice as progressive and patriotic. Moreover, tracing the struggle of a new profession to establish its status and economic position also has the major virtue of demanding a consideration of the links between practitioners and the broader artistic field, as well as the social processes which shaped it. A social history of watercolour practice organised around the search for identity and status needs, at the outset, a working definition of the term profession of the sort proposed by Ilaria Bignamini for the period prior to 1768.
