THE LIFE OF CONRAD MARTENS 



of founding dynasties had taken possession of the first or the 

 wealthier families. More legitimate was the simple pride of 

 possession ; and as Martens was the one artist capable of doing 

 more than justice to the " house and the grounds," commissions 

 came his way. He was an honoured guest at Camden, and 

 fulfilled many commissions for General Macarthur. Sir Daniel 

 Cooper, Alexander McLeay, and Thomas Sutcliffe Mort were 

 amongst his city patrons ; and one well worthy of mention is the 

 good merchant John Brown, jun., who balanced the artist's wine 

 bill for twenty-six pounds twelve shillings against four pictures. 

 Martens had a Turnerian appreciation of old sherry, which should, 

 I think, be accounted to his credit. 



He must have enjoyed, too, those excursions to the country, 

 which not only increased his material for pictures, but enabled 

 him also to experience new landscape sensations a thing which 

 to some painters imparts a fresh forward impetus. His fecundity 

 on these occasions was amazing, and, as he visited many places 

 of interest in New South Wales, his sketches form a record that 

 cannot be too highly valued. 



Martens never seems to have uttered a wish to return to Eng- 

 land, and I think his genuine love of Australian landscape held 

 him to his new home. To Marshall Claxton, a pretentious 

 painter who, for some ungodly reason, brought to Australia a 

 commission from Miss Burdett-Coutts to cover a canvas eighteen 

 feet by twelve with " Christ Blessing Little Children," he upheld 

 the " necessity " of preserving the character and true delineation 

 of Australian trees and plants, short of absolute servility. 



The meticulous Mr. Fowles who, judging from his delineation 

 of Sydney in 1848, might have been empowered to collect a tax 

 upon window-panes, so justly has he allotted each window its 

 share of glass is, in his text, garrulous and vainglorious ; the 

 place might have been a very Paris, so nobly does he extol, 

 under the divine inspiration of payment for services, the Ad- 

 vancement of Learning and the Fine Arts. But the Fine Arts 

 flourished mainly in Mr. Joseph Fowles's luxuriant imagination, 

 though their condition was not so desperate as is hinted by the 

 pessimist who told Sir Robert Peel that " there are very few 



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