[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Artists —> Robert Braithwaite Martineau —> Paintings]

Suffice it to say that Mr. Martineau looks as if he might be, in this exact somewhat exaggerated photography, the very double of Holman Hunt, from the sentiment of the countenance or the moulding of the features, to the cross threads of the net kerchief round the neck – objects, apparently, of equal importance and of equally pious study" (The Spectator. "Fine Arts. Winter Cabinet Exhibition." November 19, 1859, 1192).

When this work sold at Bonhams, London, on September 22, 2021, lot 62, Christopher Newall commented:

"The Pet of the Brood is without didactic or moralistic overtones, but instead simply shows a female child, dressed in rustic fashion and standing in the open air with a background of foliage and grass, holding in her left hand a pigeon or dove. A play on words was likely to have been intended, as either or both the bird and the girl may be regarded as the pet – the bird perhaps tamed by the child, or the girl herself, who may perhaps have been the youngest of a number of siblings and the object of loving attention by her brothers and sisters. The mood of the subject is a happy one but without untoward sentimentality. In this sense it marks a progression on the part of Martineau towards a type of work which was more personal and relaxed and which served a purely decorative purpose." — Dennis T. Lanigan

Links to Related Material

• Bibliography of Criticism and Related Scholarship

---

Victorian
Web

Artists

Robert
Martineau

Paintings

Last modified 22 January 2022