The Last Chapter
Robert Braithwaite Martineau (1844–1930)
1860-63
Oil on canvas28 x 16 ¼ inches (71.5 x 41.9 cm).
Collection of the Birmingham Art Gallery and Museums, accession no. 1942P64.
This painting illustrates a young woman in a domestic interior finishing the last chapter of the book she is reading with her only illumination coming from firelight seen to her lower right. She is so engrossed in her reading she has not taken the time to light an oil lamp. It may have been influenced by Ford Madox Brown’s small painting Waiting: An English Fireside in the Winter of 1854-55 that Martineau would have seen when it was exhibited at the Hogarth Club in 1859. The Last Chapter was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1863 and the Birmingham Society of Artists in 1867. When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1863 F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum commented: "Mr. R. B. Martineau’s The Last Chapter (568), a lady kneeling before the fire on an autumn evening eager by its red light to finish the last pages of an enthralling novel, lacks beauty of feature to make the event interesting to us, but its solid, faithful and powerful execution mark the artist’s ability. It is not often we get firelight so skilfully rendered as Mr. Martineau has it here, to an effect that is large and broad, which in ordinary hands becomes spotty and heavy" (Athenaeum, (May 9, 1863), 624). — Dennis T. Lanigan
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