ABSTRACT
The division between the professional and the amateur watercolourist appears a straightforward one; professionals live by selling their work or services whether they work for pleasure or develop artistic skills to aid other pursuits, remain outside the cash nexus. More dangerous though, was the fact that it was widely rumoured that teachers often improved the work of their pupils for public consumption. Artists/drawing masters were not alone in encouraging an overlap of benefiting from it; a variety of commercial interests were keen to exploit the growing amateur market and the role that the emulation of professional practice played in it. However, there was another element of self-interest involved, since artists must have also hoped that amateurs honoured by a place in a public exhibition might repay the compliment with generous patronage. The decline in the status of amateur practice was particularly problematic for professional watercolourists because their works were often shown together in the same rooms at the Academy.
