Sale 2495 - Illustration Art, December 6, 2018

67 c JOHN MARTIN. Satan on his throne provoking his minions. A very early study for John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Sepia tone watercolor on cotton paper inlaid to a larger sheet. 197x260 mm; 7 3 / 4 x10 1 / 4 inches, inlaid to 10 1 / 4 x14 1 / 4 -inch sheet. Signed and dated “J. Martin 1817” in lower left image. [6,000/9,000] Martin was commissioned by the American publisher Septimus Prowett to create a series of mezzotint engravings for “Paradise Lost” in 1824. This preliminary drawing reveals Martin’s early interest and rumination on the epic poem. “The greatest significance of Martin’s illustrations, however, was in their spectacular visionary content… Martin laid before his public the spectacular settings of the epic tale—the open voids of the Creation, the vast vaulted caverns of Hell vanishing into the utter blackness of Chaos, the daunting scale of the city of Pandemonium, and the sweeping beauty f Heaven itself. These images have no serious counterpart and are the very essence of the sublime in Romantic art. They are without doubt one of the most significant series of British book illustrations ever to have been produced” — Michael Campbell, “John Martin: Visionary Printmaker,” pp. 40-41 (Campbell Fine Art, 1992).