Etching and mezzotint entitled 'Le Festin De Balthazar', after a painting by John Martin (1789-1854). British School, 1834.

Etching and mezzotint depicting the apocalyptic scene of Belshazzar's Feast. Lettered with title and 'Martin pinx" J.S.Lucas sculp. Aze impr. Paris, publié par Rittner & Goupil,15, Boulevart Montmartre'. Blindstamped 'Rittner & Goupil Editeurs A Paris'.

Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund, Shell International and the Friends of the V&A

The Biblical episode depicted in the painting - Belshazzar's Feast - is described in the Book of Daniel. The Babylonian king Belshazzar is said to have defiled the sacred vessels of the enslaved Israelites by using them to serve wine at a banquet. The feast was then disturbed by the appearance of a divine hand which wrote a glowing inscription on a wall - the writing on the wall - which was interpreted by the prophet Daniel as portent of Belshazzar's doom. Belshazzar was killed that night and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom.
John Martin painted the scene several times, most famously in 1821, when he exhibited a version at the British Institution and the work had to be protected from the crowds by a railing.

This version was one of Martin's last three major mezzotints, but they were a commercial failure. Balston states that 'Leggatt, Hayward and Leggatt's Descriptive Key' (1855) to Martin's Judgement Pictures refers to the artist as `Painter of Belshazzar's Feast, Fall of Nineveh, The Destroying Angel, etc.,' but found no other record of the picture: see Balston, p.277.
An earlier, almost identical, version of the subject had been engraved in mezzotint by Martin's son Alfred and published in 1835 (see VAM, E.530 1966). The mezzotint was Plate 33 in Martin's 'Illustrations of The Bible', 1835.

SP.370