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Martens: Materials and Methods
Conrad Martens was a fully trained professional artist who was extremely business-like in his approach to art. He kept a meticulous journal detailing all his works, the clients who had commissioned them, the prices paid, and the dates on which they were despatched. This journal, now in the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, provides a wealth of information about the ‘best practice’ of a mid–nineteenth century artist.
Martens always used the finest materials, and took full advantage of technical advances in papermaking, paint production and colour standardisation that occurred in the late eighteenth century and throughout his lifetime.
In his Australian days he imported paper from London, preferring the smooth cream woven paper made by Whatman, the leading British manufacturer. From the 1850s he also used coarser coloured papers to create special effects, experimenting with new papers as they came to hand. He also bought best quality sketchbooks from Ackermann and Roberson & Miller in London, and kept his sketches as key references for the rest of his life, so that he could make paintings of the same subjects years later with accuracy. Paints, as well as papers, were imported from London, and after 1846 Martens was able to use Winsor & Newton’s watercolour paints in the new metal tubes, thus saving the labour of grinding and mixing his own colours.
All watercolours fade dramatically if subjected to strong light. Despite Martens’s fine materials, some of his work has faded, and certain colours, such as indigo, have proved particularly susceptible. As early as the 1860s Martens was retouching some works from the mid-1830s.
Martens considered the frame to be an important part of the finished work, and his frames were made in Sydney to his exact specifications. In 1854 Martens wrote to a friend: ‘It is a downright injustice to shew a picture on which a painter’s credit is staked without a frame.’ Several original frames by Edwin Baldwin, Martens’s Sydney framer of the 1850s, are still with their original works in the Queensland Art Gallery collection.
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