Studio: international art (87.1924)

A PRE-RAPHAELITE PAINTER

“ THE POOR ACTRESS’S CHRISTMAS
DINNER." OIL SKETCH FOR A
PICTURE. BY R. B. MARTINEAU

picture The Last Day in the Old Home.
The present generation, although the pic-
ture now through the gift of the artist’s
brother Edward Martineau, forms part of
the National Collection, has little knowledge
of his name and perhaps no recollection of
the great success he suddenly achieved.
The picture made a triumphant progress
through the country after the close of the
Great Exhibition of 1862, and his name and
Holman Hunt's were generally linked
together.” 00000
Many of Martineau’s smaller pictures
and sketches possess considerable charm.
For instance, Kit’s Writing Lesson, a scene
from Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop is an
admirable specimen of the English pre-
Raphaelite School, and the head of Kit is
strongly reminiscent of Ford Madox
Brown’s painting. Another of the smaller
works was The Pet of the Brood, originally
belonging to Mr. Kirkman Hodgson and
208

sold in 1907 at Christie’s to the late
Mr. Oatway. This cannot now be traced.
The same is the case with The Knight’s
Guerdon, which was the property of the
late Sir Thomas Fairbairn. 0 0

A larger picture is Katherine and
Petruchio, full of finely painted detail.

The Woman of San Germ.ano has re-
tained all its original rich colouring—
which, sad to relate, is not the case in some
of Martineau’s works, a medium having
been used which eventually darkened the
shadows and flesh tints and lowered the
whole tone of the picture. Martineau did
not begin painting until he was about
twenty-five and he died at the early age
of forty-three from rheumatic fever.
He left comparatively few finished works,
for he was slow and conscientious in his
method, and the stories he depicts are
always sincerely and truthfully carried
out. Helen Martineau.