Robert B. Martineau by William Holman Hunt

Robert B. Martineau

W. Holman Hunt

Inscribed with monograph and "1860"

Watercolor?

Source: Pre-Raphaelitism, II, 309

Martineau, Hunt's pupil and disciple, painted several fine paintings, including Last Day in the Old Home (1861) and Kip's First Writing Lesson (1852), before his early death [see below].

Scanned image and text by George P. Landow

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Holman Hunt on Martineau

R. B. Martineau, who, having heard of my success with Rossetti, had, through an old fellow-student, notified his wish to become my pupil in painting. He had already been through the schools of the-Academy, gaining some honours, and wished at this point to train himself to paint subject pictures in oil. Concluding that he thought I was very prosperous, I tested him by saying that up to this present time, although I had lived more self denyingly than any lawyer's clerk would have, done, I had not succeeded in paying my way, and that I was heavily in debt, with nothing but pictures as assets which nobody would buy; indeed, from all experiences I could scarcely regard painting in England as a profession at all, and advised, if he could reconcile himself to any other life, that he would abandon the idea of becoming an artist. But to him the lucrativeness of the pursuit was not at first a vital question, which removed the scruples I had against encouraging any one native born needing to live by is profession from becoming a painter in this country. In the end he became my pupil, and remained my close and much valued friend until his death, nearly twenty years later. I encouraged him to complete a design he had begun from The Old Curiosity Shop and this he painted in my studio, while finished "The Hireling Shepherd." He never became a facile executant, but from the first he produced admirable pictures. His greatest work was "The Last Day in the Old Home." [I, 302]

References

William Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1905.

Last modified 1 January 2005