John Martin (July 19, 1789 — February 17, 1854) was an important and influential English Romantic painter of the nineteenth century.

Martin was born at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham in Northumberland. He was apprenticed by his father to a coachbuilder in Newcastle upon Tyne to learn heraldic painting, but owing to a quarrel the indentures were canceled, and he was placed under Bonifacio Musso, an Italian artist, father of the enamel painter Charles Muss. With his master, Martin removed from Newcastle to London in 1806, where he married at the age of nineteen, and supported himself by giving drawing lessons, and by painting in water colors, and on china and glass. His leisure was occupied in the study of perspective and architecture.

In addition to being a painter, John Martin was a major mezzotint engraver and for significant periods of his life he earned more from his engravings than his paintings. In 1823, Martin was commissioned by Samuel Prowett, an American publisher, to illustrate John Milton’s Paradise Lost, for which he was paid 2000 pounds. However, before the first 24 engravings were completed he was paid a further 1500 pounds for a second set of 24 engravings on smaller plates. Two of the more notable prints include Pandæmonium and Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council, remarkable for the science fiction element visible in the depicted architecture. others were engraved after his oils and widely distributed in the 19th century.

John Martin “The Seventh Plague”, Engraved by J. Godfrey and Published by Barrie, New York. The work measure 7.50 by 10.75 inches approximate and in good condition.

Art (paintings, prints, frames)