Seeing Red

Abstract

In 2011–12 Tate Britain mounted a major exhibition dedicated to the painter and printmaker John Martin (1789–1854). His most sensational painting, Belshazzar’s Feast (1820), was displayed alongside works illustrating how others capitalized on its success through imitation and copying (Fig. 1). These were all prints of some form except one, the ‘most striking’, painted on a large piece of glass (Fig. 2).1 As a curiosity closely associated with Martin’s early career as a glass painter, this has a long-established presence within the written history of Martin’s work.2 In the accompanying publication the