The Last Chapter

Robert Braithwaite Martineau

Date: 1863

Materials: Oil on canvas

Painstaking technique

'The Last Chapter' is one of only eleven paintings shown by Martineau at the Royal Academy in sixteen years, and indeed his technique is described by more than one commentator as having been painstaking, if not laborious. Hunt recalled

"the incorrigible habit he contracted of painting over and over again his yesterday's work while still wet". 

Affection & respect

Encouraged by the companionship of Holman Hunt, with whom he shared a studio for many years, Martineau participated in many of the Pre-Raphaelites' social and professional activities. William Rossetti remembered him with affection and respect as "a very sensible person, not given to much talk, and with a mind rather steady-going than lively, highly trusty and well-principled, and worthy of the utmost regard. He had much taste and some natural gift for music".