THE LIFE OF CONRAD MARTENS 



Martens must have been a good teacher, for he was thoroughly 

 grounded in the practice of the day. He was master of a fine 

 understanding the clarity with which he develops his ideas on 

 art, in the Lecture, is enough to attest it. He was curious of the 

 methods and tricks of his trade witness his inveterate habit of 

 note-taking, and his pleasure in a good workshop receipt ; and as 

 he was honest, straightforward, and circumspect, we may rest 

 assured that whatever knowledge he possessed was at the service 

 of his pupils. 



Teachers were better paid then than now. Turner and Der 

 Wint had begun with five shillings an hour for private pupils, 

 and ended by charging a guinea. We do not know what those 

 colonial worshippers of Apollo paid Martens ; but, with his cre- 

 dentials and qualifications, he must have earned creditable fees, 

 for he was in a position to marry as early as 1837. The lady of 

 his choice was Jane Brackenbury Carter, daughter of William 

 Carter, sometime Sheriff and later Registrar-General of the 

 Colony : she survived her husband by sixteen years. Two chil- 

 dren were born to them while in Cumberland Street, Rebecca 

 in 1 838 and Elizabeth in the following year. 



This young family must have considerably strained the artist's 

 resources, so to add to them he hit upon an excellent expedient. 

 There had never been a good general view of Sydney accessible 

 to the public. This, as Martens saw, was his golden oppor- 

 tunity, and he designed the well-known view from North Shore, 

 of which so many examples are still in existence. Lithography 

 in Sydney was so poorly executed, and suitable paper so hard 

 to procure, that Martens was compelled to send his design to 

 London, where it was transferred to the stone by a journeyman 

 named Boyd. The partially-tinted prints Martens wrought upon 

 with water-colour and body-white until they wore the appearance 

 of original water-colours ; and, at times, when colouring one for 

 a special patron, he varied his foreground. " My coloured print 

 continues to sell," he writes in '49. " I have, in the long run, 

 made a very good thing out of it. I sell none uncoloured. They 

 sell at a guinea, but I allow Ford and others twenty-five per cent, 

 if they choose to pay me cash. I do not, however, think it would 



