| < Return to index Provenance By descent to Charles Laughton, Scarborough; his sale, Sotheby's, London, Mar. 18, 1964, lots 73 (Approach) and 74 (Adam and Eve) Leggatt Brothers, London (Approach) Sotheby's, London, October 30, 1985, lot 290 (Approach) Christie's, London, November 1, 1988, lot 84 (Adam and Eve)
Thomas Balston, "John Martin: New Discoveries," Burlington Magazine, XCVI (November, 1951), pp. 94-105 William Feaver, The Art of John Martin (Oxford: 1975), p. 75, 222n.8 John Martin 1789-1854; Loan Exhibition; Oil Paintings, Watercolours, Prints. London: Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox 1975, exh. cat. by William Feaver, p.45 |
| | Old Master Paintings & Drawings IV |
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| Adam and Eve Driven out of Paradise Cf. Paradise Lost, Book 12, line 641 The Approach of the Archangel Michael Cf. Paradise Lost, Book 11, line 226 Oil on canvas 18 3/4 x 27 inches (47.5 x 68.5 cm) | |
The present paintings are part of a group of twenty-four canvases that Martin did as preparatory works for the mezzotint illustrations to Milton's Paradise Lost, published by Septimus Prowett in 1827. The twenty-four works were discovered in 1951 by Robert Frank, the remarkable connoisseur and champion of Martin's work who owned numerous paintings by the artist including The Last Judgement and The Plains of Heaven, now in the Tate Gallery. Frank found the Paradise Lost paintings rolled up and unstretched at the Royal Hotel in Scarborough. The series was exhibited in its entirety in the exhibition Tyneside's Contribution to Art, held at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1951. Ten of the canvases were included in the retrospective exhibition John Martin 1789-1854, organized by Balston and held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1953. The paintings later descended to the collection of Charles Laughton of Scarborough and were sold at his sale at Sotheby's, London, in 1964. Of the other paintings in the series, Adam Listening to the Voice of the Almighty is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (for which see Ronald Parkinson, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, London 1990, pp. 187-88). Paradise: The Angel Gabriel Approaching Adam and Eve is in the Forbes Collection at Battersea House, London (see The Art and Mind of Victorian England; Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, exh. cat. by Andrea Rose, Minneapolis 1974, pp. 54-55.) Four other paintings from the series were exhibited in the exhibition John Martin 1789-1854; Artist-Reformer-Engineer, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Laing Art Gallery, 1970, nos. 13-16. | ||