8 BLOWING BUBBLES, Version 2 c. 1836

William Henry Hunt painted at least four variations of the theme of a boy blowing bubbles, including two versions of this particular image. This watercolor is painted more loosely than is typical for figure paintings by Hunt, which may be due to its being a study or, perhaps more likely, because it was painted to look like a dtudy. In 1862, the Society of Painters in Water-colours, the most prominent professional organization for the most successful watercolor artists in England, started a second annual exhibition in addition to the primary, Spring exhibitions which had for decades been the major venue for society members to show and sell their recent works. The new Winter exhibitions were limited to works which were slighter in nature, either studies for more finished past or recent works or less finished watercolors of types which were previously not intended for sale to the general public. This presented a problem for Hunt if he wished to participate in a second annual exhibition with the prospect of earning more income. Other than very minor pencil studies, which were little more than doodles and which rarely related to the artist's finished watercolors, and a very few studies in watercolor of models holding difficult poses or fleeting expressions [such as my study of the boy from the Flycatcher], Hunt had very little existing work that would have been suitable for exhibition -- he almost always loosely sketched his compositions on the same sheet of paper on which he then painted the final image in watercolor over the sketch. I therefore suspect that he painted up some sketchier versions of the finished works he had exhibited at earlier Spring exhibitions, including this painting.for the 1863 Winter Exhibition.