Belshazzar’s Feast Postcard

This is a reproduction of “Belshazzar’s Feast”of 1821 by John Martin. He was thirty-two years old when he created this work. The scene shows the Biblical epdisode described in the book of Daniel. the Babylonian king had defiled the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple and a mysterious hand appeared that wrote out the doom of the king and the kingdom. The exhibition of the painting t the British Institution made Martin’s reputation and was a popular sensation. The Artist was born in Northumberland and became a student of Bonifacio Musso. They moved to London when Martin was seventeen and he married two years later. He supported himself giving drawing lessons and selling watercolors and, on his second attempt, had an oil on canvas hung in the Royal Academy when he twenty-two. Five years later he won public acclaim for his Joshua and two years later a large sale enabled him to buy a home and rid himself of debt. He went on to win wider public acclaim and to become a favourite of aristocrats and royalty. He died a wealthy man in 1874. This painting is an oil on canvas and measures 63 by 98 inches. It is in a private collection.