Lot Essay
Martens sailed from England in May 1833 on a three year cruise to India on Commander Blackwood's Hyacinth. In November, after landfalls at Madeira and Rio de Janeiro, he replaced the ailing Augustus Earle as draughtsman on Fitzroy's Beagle at Montevideo. He made a number of pencil drawings of the Corral in Madeira on 31 May 1833 (R.D. Keynes, The Beagle Record etc., Cambridge, 1979, p. 390 (Conrad Martens's 'Beagle' Pictures, 11-15) and in a letter dated 1 June 1995 Professor R.D. Keynes remarks that the present watercolour 'is very close to CM No. 11 in my catalogue in The Beagle Record, labelled 'The Corrale, Madeira. May 31 1833', and I would judge can safely be said to be developed from it.')
Martens described the visit in his Journal: "Accordingly it was proposed that we should the next morning, along with the principal officers of the ship, mount horses and ride to the Corall, a valley in the interior of the island, and a sort of shew scene - ... Madeira has not been much frequented by the descriptive traveller, and certainly I think the grandeur and magnificence of the Corral would receive but a poor compliment from the most eloquent of them. Upon the whole we left Madeira with much regret. Our stay was so short being only 3 days that there was not time for the novelty to wear off, and the extreme beauty of the place, the delicious fragrance and luxurious softness of the air, joined to the great civility we had received will certainly cause the name of Madeira for ever to be accompanied with the most pleasing recollections.' (C. Martens, Journal of a Voyage from England to Australia 1833-35, transcript by Michael Organ, Sydney, 1994, p. 4).
Martens described the visit in his Journal: "Accordingly it was proposed that we should the next morning, along with the principal officers of the ship, mount horses and ride to the Corall, a valley in the interior of the island, and a sort of shew scene - ... Madeira has not been much frequented by the descriptive traveller, and certainly I think the grandeur and magnificence of the Corral would receive but a poor compliment from the most eloquent of them. Upon the whole we left Madeira with much regret. Our stay was so short being only 3 days that there was not time for the novelty to wear off, and the extreme beauty of the place, the delicious fragrance and luxurious softness of the air, joined to the great civility we had received will certainly cause the name of Madeira for ever to be accompanied with the most pleasing recollections.' (C. Martens, Journal of a Voyage from England to Australia 1833-35, transcript by Michael Organ, Sydney, 1994, p. 4).