Adam's Pale Ale, c. 1836

The model for this watercolor by William Henry Hunt is John Swain, a fisher boy found by the artist in 1830 at Hastings, England, who served as the model for dozens of Hunt's works. The subject matter is a play on Pale Ale, a form of ale popular among temperance advocates in England which had a much lower alcohol content than regular ale - sort of like lite beer in America more than a century later. The boy is sitting next to a stream, from which he has filled his jug with water - just about as pale a liquid as one could imagine.