ABSTRACT
The first historian of the watercolour medium, William Henry Pyne, was in no doubt about the state of the art in the mid-eighteenth century. There are a number of reasons why the identity of the watercolourist was subsumed in the category of painter in the period leading up to the foundation of the Royal Academy. While the developments were taking place, a media hierarchy detrimental to the interests of watercolour specialists at the Academy was gathering momentum. The new Academy moved swiftly to introduce the basis of an inflexible and divisive media hierarchy as the inevitable corollary of a closed model of profession. The application of the term 'painter' across different media reflected the continuing notion of the artist as the possessor of a multitude of practical skills. Judging a watercolour by the standard of oil paintings was one of the earliest, and remained the most important, critical strategy throughout the period, though the grounds of the comparison changed radically.
