Destruction of Tyre

Martin's Destruction of Tyre from around 1840 treats the fall of the great Phoenician trading city as prophesied by Ezekiel and Isaiah—another in his systematic series of ancient civilizations consumed by divine judgment. Tyre, the wealthiest and most powerful mercantile city of the ancient world before its destruction by Alexander the Great, provided Martin with an architectural subject of oriental splendor whose fall could be rendered with the dramatic contrast between civilization's pride and destruction's completeness. The ancient cities of the biblical Near East—Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, Sodom—formed a recurring subject category for Martin because their documented destruction combined historical authenticity with moral narrative and the visual opportunity for architectural grandeur in flames. The work belongs to his later career when his Miltonic trilogy and continued biblical subjects maintained his reputation with popular audiences.

Martin's signature approach—vast architectural panoramas engulfed by catastrophic forces—is fully deployed here. The precise rendering of the city's elaborate structures heightens the impact of their destruction.