id: 150353 accession number: 1981.13 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.13 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:47.045000 Ruins of an Ancient City, c. 1810–20. John Martin (British, 1789–1854). Oil on paper, mounted on canvas; framed: 118.5 x 142 x 8 cm (46 5/8 x 55 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.); unframed: 95.6 x 118.6 cm (37 5/8 x 46 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1981.13 title: Ruins of an Ancient City title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1810–20 creation date earliest: 1810 creation date latest: 1820 current location: creditline: Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: oil on paper, mounted on canvas department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John Martin (British, 1789–1854) - artist Born in Northumberland, John Martin began his career as a coach and ceramics painter before exhibiting oil paintings at the Royal Academy, London. His first critical success, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812, Saint Louis Art Museum), introduced his penchant for dramatic compositions with diminutive figures in vast and often threatening landscapes. Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gideon (1816, United Grand Lodge of England) and Belshazzar's Feast (1821, private collection) combined meticulous biblical and archaeological research with imaginative pictorial narrative and sensational architectural perspective to create a unique genre of the apocalyptic sublime. Martin was an inveterate self-promoter, and in an effort to broaden his commercial support in the 1820s he designed and engraved nearly a hundred mezzotint illustrations to the Bible and to Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), thus becoming one of the principal exponents and arguably the most accomplished practitioner of that printmaking technique in the nineteenth century. A number of unrealized engineering schemes that were as grandiose as the subjects of many of his most imposing pictures preoccupied Martin in the 1830s and 1840s, diverting much of his energy from his art. These plans included a water system and sewage disposal plan for the city of London. In his final years he returned to the cataclysmic inspiration of his middle period and painted a magnificent trilogy of Last Judgment pictures now in the Tate Gallery, London. --- measurements: Framed: 118.5 x 142 x 8 cm (46 5/8 x 55 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 95.6 x 118.6 cm (37 5/8 x 46 11/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed lower right: j. martin translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The Year in Review for 1981 opening date: 1982-02-17T05:00:00 The Year in Review for 1981. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982). title: Artlens Exhibition 2017 opening date: 2017-06-24T04:00:00 Artlens Exhibition 2017. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24, 2017-May 29, 2019). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE William Ropner, 1864-1947 (West Hartlepool, England), by 1898, when it was withdrawn from a Christie's sale. date: footnotes: citations: Privat collection (sold, Christie's, London, 24 November 1978, lot 160) as An Extensive Classical Landscape with a Ruined City, ca. 1812-15, for £6,000 to Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox. date: footnotes: citations: Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, (London, England), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 420-422, Vol. II, no. 145 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.13/1981.13_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.13/1981.13_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.13/1981.13_full.tif