John Martin

(Haydon Bridge 1789-1854 Isle of Man)

A mountainous landscape with a waterfall and lake, a study for The Plains of Heaven

Footnotes

Provenance
The artist's studio
Possibly His Sale, The Contents of Lindsey House, Christie & Manson, 4 July 1854, lots 189, 190 and 191 (each being a study for The Plains of Heaven)
Jessie (1825-1859) or Isabella Martin (1812-1879), the artist's daughters
Cecilia Bonomi, daughter of Jessie Martin and Joseph Bonomi the Younger (1796-1878) and later Baroness de Cosson (1855-1944), and by descent through the family

This watercolour is an elaborate preparatory design for John Martin's oil painting of The Plains of Heaven (Tate Britain), the most sublimely beautiful of his final three great works, his trilogy of paintings concerning The Last Judgment. Completed late in 1853, just before Martin suffered the stroke which paralysed his painting hand, this extraordinary series of enormous oil paintings was to prove a fitting swansong for this remarkable artist. Many, including some of the critics of the time, considered this series of paintings to be the pinnacle of Martin's achievements and there is no doubt that they represent a truly extraordinary high point at the very end of his life. John Martin died within only a few months of his crippling stroke, in February 1854.

Although three preparatory sketches for The Plains of Heaven are known to have existed, only one much smaller watercolour study dated 1851 can be located today (private collection, formerly in the Campbell Collection).

The style of sublime landscape which Martin presents in this watercolour is a form of Arcadian landscape which he had developed gradually throughout his career as an artist. It had first appeared in his painting of Clytie in 1810/11 and had been adapted for his mezzotint engravings for Milton's Paradise Lost, produced between 1824 and 1826, recurring in his oil painting of The Celestial City and River of Bliss (1841). However, this particular style of composition first crystallised in his remarkable large format watercolour of Kilmeney in 1833 and culminated in his vast oil painting of The Plains of Heaven (1851-53).

Martin had already been developing the images which were going to form his Last Judgment subjects since the 1830s and by 1845 was producing specific pen and ink sketches for The Last Judgment itself (one in Tate Britain, formerly in the Campbell Collection).

Martin had begun work on The Plains of Heaven, the last of his Judgment pictures, by late 1851 or early 1852 and it is recorded that he was working on this painting up to the moment that he departed for the Isle of Man where, on November 12th 1853, he was to suffer the stroke which paralysed his right hand.

This subject was taken from Revelations chapter 21:
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven, and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
And he that sat upon the throne said 'Behold, I make all things new'."

In the finished oil painting of The Plains of Heaven Martin reversed the style of trees seen in the foreground of this preparatory watercolour design, moved the waterfall from the left to the right of the composition and introduced a host of angels, flowers and gilded gondolas to the centre of the design. Here, we see his ideal landscape in its purest form, undisturbed by the figures for which Martin was so often criticised.

The curved upper corners which form an arched top to this watercolour correspond with the finished oil painting of The Last Judgement which was similarly shaped. The arched top is only known through Charles Mottram's engraving of the painting published shortly after Martin's death. Having ceased practising engraving himself, John Martin signed agreements with the publisher and printseller Thomas Maclean in June 1851 and January 1852, for Maclean to have the paintings engraved by a professional engraver. By January 1852 Charles Mottram had begun engraving the plate of the first painting to be finished, The Last Judgment, and Mottram's three finished plates were published together on 1st January 1857. In the engraving, The Last Judgment is seen with curved upper corners forming an arched top – this arched upper part of the painting was lost when the painting was cut into sections at some time between 1930 and 1947 (the section panels were pieced back together to form the painting now in Tate Britain). Thomas Balston was incorrect in stating that "no portion of the work was missing" (T. Balston, John Martin 1789-1854 His Life and Works, 1947, p.249), for the arched top of the painting, recorded accurately in Mottram's large engraving, was now gone.

The handling of the present work with its rather 'staccato' style in rendering the foreground foliage, the curved up lower corners and the unresolved mountains are all typical of John Martin's later watercolour studies around 1850. He would have been unlikely to sign such an unfinished working study, especially as it remained in his possession, not exhibited to the public. Furthermore, the excellent provenance of this watercolour overcomes the lack of a signature.

Three preparatory sketches for The Plains of Heaven were listed in the sale catalogue of the contents of John Martin's home, Lindsey House, and his remaining works, auctioned by Christie & Manson on Tuesday July 4th, 1854, lots 189, 190 and 191 in the sale. Whether this watercolour was one of those listed in the sale catalogue, or is a fourth and unrecorded study, is unknown. Indeed, it is unclear how the auction after John Martin's death was organised but it is certain that a number of the lots from the sale were either withdrawn or purchased for one of John Martin's daughters, with whose descendants they have remained until the present day. Initially they passed to either John Martin's youngest daughter Jessie Martin or, more likely, to his eldest daughter Isabella Martin. Jessie Martin had married the well known Egyptologist, Joseph Bonomi the younger (1796-1878), whilst still in her teens; however, she died in 1859, aged 34, at the birth of her eighth child. She was nursed by her elder sister, Isabella, at the end of her life and Isabella stayed to bring up the Bonomi children, assisting Joseph Bonomi in the running of the Soane Museum and in his literary work until his death in 1878. Isabella had spent her youth acting as secretary to her father, John Martin, so it was almost certainly she who safeguarded what remained. Isabella died unmarried in 1879.

We are grateful to Michael Campbell for his assistance in preparing this catalogue note.