Object of the Day, Museum Edition: “Punch and Judy” by Arthur Boyd Houghton, 1860

Punch and Judy
Arthur Boyd Houghton, 1860
Oil on Canvas
Tate Britain

Painter Arthur Boyd Houghton (1836-1875) was well-known for his small scenes depicting everyday life in Victorian London. His intimate compositions often were teeming with figures meant to show a cross section of the population of London. In this painting from 1860, Houghton uses a scene of a Punch and Judy Show (barely visible on the right) to demonstrate the universal appeal of this form of entertainment to people of all classes. Such public shows were a leveler—uniting individuals from all walks of life—with humor and good-natured political and social satire.


While the show itself is the draw, the crowd is the real theater of this scene. Here, we see a typical mix of the residences of the many sections of London. Two smartly-dressed children stand with their caregiver, should-to-shoulder with a street urchin in rags. A laborer carries a wicker-bound parcel toward an unconcerned gentlewoman. Dressed in fine clothes and a tall silk hat, a well-to-do young gentleman is being chatted up by someone of a different class. Standing out like a character from the pantomime is the uniformed lamp-lighter in his blue and red attire—symbolic of the state’s protection of society from the evils of darkness.

By centering this boiling pot of different circumstances around the common central theme of the appeal of Mr. Punch, Houghton shows us that everyone is equal where it counts.