Yes, the reaction to this photograph was just a piece of fun – the joke being that there is a supposed mismatch between ‘high’ fine art and the picture’s ‘low’ and squalid subject matter. But, in a sense, this is misguided – because, actually, it would be possible to construct an entire history of art considered solely through the prism (or should that be the bottom of a glass?) of alcohol.

Intoxication was a major theme of art in the ancient world: just think of all those painted pots depicting the raucous entertainments commonly held at ancient Greek symposia or drinking parties. Praxiteles, the renowned Attic sculptor operating during the 4th Century BC, created a famous statue of the infant wine god, Dionysus, perched on the arm of Hermes.

The Romans, too, were in thrall to Bacchus (as they called Dionysus). He often appears, with or without his uproarious retinue, in sculptures, wall paintings, and mosaics.

With the revival of antiquity’s pagan worldview during the Renaissance, drink became an important subject for artists once again. Before he created his spellbinding Pieta, Michelangelo sculpted a lewd and tipsy Bacchus. Titian also depicted the god of intoxication – leaping, with ravishing poise, from a chariot drawn by cheetahs, in the National Gallery’s Bacchus and Ariadne.